Frank Kogan

At least for Mucore, the audience sounds appear to be recorded during broadcast. There was one SNSD performance that was pre-recorded not even in studio, but from the stadium at which they were going to do a solo concert in later. It was not the concert performance of the song, so there was no audience present at the stadium. Thus the screams heard at the beginning and ending of the song were either recorded during broadcast, or from the fan-scream equivalent of the laughing track.

"facing an audience where there's the possibility of an adverse reaction,"
Reminds me of the "CL has a parrot on her shoulder" instance. I don't think YG announced beforehand about the parrot's presence, though, like CCM did with Little T-ara.
What struck me about the parrot thing, though, is that initial (probably pre-written) articles didn't note any outrage, and were the usual run-of-the-mill hype and praise for everything during the stage, maybe dropping a "shocking" and "awkward" here and there to reflect the novelty of the stage, but overall not a negative reaction.
The criticism that would later cause YG to apologize seemed to solely derive from people who watched the performance from a screen, and not audience who had watched in studio, live.

So any fear of an adverse reaction is not fear of one from the audience they're facing, but the one that they can't face, the ones who watch and criticize them through an indirect medium and in a delayed timeline.

But companies have never really been sincere in their apologies before, especially in those MV-bans or lyric/outfit/choreo alterations for "decency," exactly because any adverse reaction is delayed, and they can get their publicity in that time period and even because of the backlash. Little kids dancing sexy to Kpop is nothing new either, from the girls in AS's "Bang!" MV, to, um, this, which did not receive any backlash. Why is CCM backing down now?