On May 30 KST, boy group MCND released an official statement to notify fans that members Minjae, Hwijoon, and Win would be halting their group activities temporarily due to "personal schedules". 

The 3 MCDN members, who debuted in 2020, are the latest to join a handful of already debuted K-Pop idols projected to be appearing on Mnet's upcoming global boy group audition program, 'Boys II Planet'. 

Marking the second season of the popular audition program 'Boys Planet', which gave birth to the project group ZEROBASEONE, 'Boys II Planet' has teased an even larger scale and even more rigorous evaluations for its contestants. 

Notably, the program is garnering attention for what is suspected to be a significant pool of contestants with prior debut experience. 

Similar to MCND's recent announcement, a number of K-Pop boy groups began announcing the hiatuses of certain members since early May. It's widely believed that these idols have decided to halt their group activities while participating as contestants on 'Boys II Planet'. Those confirmed to have announced group hiatuses thus far include: WHIB's Jayder, Leejeong, and Wonjun (debuted 2023), DKB's Heechan and Harry June (2020), The Wind's Thanatorn (debuted 2023), BLITZERS's Chris (debuted 2021), VERIVERY's Dongheon, Gyehyeon, and Kangmin (debuted 2018), WEi's Kim Jun Seo (debuted 2020), and DRIPPIN's Lee Hyeop and Kim Dong Yoon (debuted 2020). 

Meanwhile, 'Boys II Planet' recently announced a change in the program's format last week on May 23 KST. Originally, the program intended to divide the contestants into two groups - 'Planet K' and 'Planet C' - with the intent to pick winning members from both planets, resulting in a winning group debuting in China and a winning group debuting in Korea. However, according to Mnet, the format has now been changed and will only select one winning group. In the early stages, the competition will be divided between 'Planet K' and 'Planet C', until eventually, the contestants come together for the main competition. 

Mnet's 'Boys II Planet' is scheduled to premiere on July 17 (K) and July 18 (C). 

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