Kang Ho Dong

Kang Ho-dong (강호동) remains one of Korean variety television's defining format drivers. Before the studio lights, he was a championship ssireum athlete, and that physical authority never left his screen language. It became the core of an MC style built on pressure, timing, and comedic momentum.

That style helped him anchor multiple eras of variety. His résumé runs through X-Man, Star King, Knowing Brothers on JTBC, New Journey to the West and The Great Escape on tvN, then into The Great Escape: The Story on TVING. Few Korean hosts have stayed this central across terrestrial, cable, and streaming cycles.

Kang's current relevance is not nostalgic. His official YouTube activity keeps him direct-to-audience, and his long-running position inside the wider SM Entertainment management network underlines how commercially durable his name still is. When SM C&C appointed him as a director in 2024, it signaled the same thing the ratings history already had: Kang Ho-dong is still an institution, not just a legacy star.