or that the drama's audience may blindly accept the historical content as genuine. Advertisers such as TEAZEN, Ssarijai, Heung Il Furniture, Ganisong, P&J Group, and Han's Electronics announced they were pulling advertisements from the broadcast of the show and issued apologies. Daegu University, where Snowdrop was filmed, stated that it requested the name of the university be taken off of the drama's credits. Memorial institutions of student activists Bak Jong-cheol and Lee Han-yeol, whose deaths became key inciting events of the 1987 June Struggle, have criticized Snowdrop. The Bak Jong-cheol Memorial Foundation spoke out against the drama, calling it a "disparagement of the democratization movement" and "a drama with an obvious intention to distort." The Lee Han-yeol Memorial Museum also called on the drama to be cancelled. JTBC Studios attempted to arrange a meeting with a representative of the Bak Jong-cheol Memorial Foundation, but its efforts were unsuccessful. On December 21, JTBC released their official statement on the controversy that read, "The background and motif for important incidents in Snowdrop are the time of military regime. With this background, it contains a fictional story of the party in power colluding with the North Korean government in order to maintain authority. Snowdrop is a creative work that shows the personal stories of individuals who were used and victimized by those in power. There is no spy who leads the democratization movement in Snowdrop. The male and female leads were not shown as participating in or leading the democratization movement in episodes 1 and 2, and they do not do so in any part of the future script." The statement continued, "Most of the misunderstandings regarding concerns of historical negationism and disparaging the democratization movement will be settled through the progress of the drama's plot. The drama includes the production team's intent of hoping for no repetition of an abnormal era in which individual freedom and happiness are oppressed by unjust power. Although we unfortunately cannot reveal much of the plot ahead of each episode, we ask that you watch over the future progress of the plot." JTBC stated their intention to listen to their official website's real-time chat and viewer message board. JTBC hastened the broadcasting schedule of Snowdrop and aired episodes 3, 4, and 5 on December 24, 25 and 26 respectively, with the stated intention to quickly resolve misunderstandings from the beginning of the drama. JTBC stated that episodes