Minimus

On another note, have you ever wondered why TVN has passed on The King? Studio Dragon and TVN are both owned by CJ ENM. If they really had faith in the show, wouldn't it make sense that TVN took over the broadcasting rights instead of SBS? I think that even CJ ENM themselves were not totally satisfied with the writing. I find it also odd that Studio Dragon forewent any upside profit by selling all the broadcasting rights to SBS and Netflix in advance. I think this stinks, but this is my own theory and perhaps not the truth...

To be fair, these are domestic ratings and you are using international outlets to prove your point. But okay, I will accept them.

Anyways, can I tell you something? I do not want to be offensive, but you are pulling the "victim" card. You are treating TKEM as "David" and the netizens/media as "Goliath", but you know that in Korea chaebols and other big institutions are so powerful that they can essentially shut down any bad press. Also, if these articles were defamatory, Korea allows for easy lawsuits to punish these people. But let's look at TKEM... Are they really "David"? No. SBS is arguably the most powerful broadcasting station in Korea, Kim Eun Sook is one of the most powerful writers, Studio Dragon (CJ ENM) is the most powerful drama production company and Lee Min Ho is a national darling. If the criticism was really unjustified, these parties can sue the hell out of everyone. They have also the power to cover any bad press.

Yes, there are a lot of controversies surrounding TKEM, but it is self-inflicted. They should have never attempted to involve Japan into their story line to appeal to the patriotic feelings of Koreans in the first place, because it gives room for mistakes. Some mistakes are just not so easy to forgive. Koreans despise anything with a resemblance of the Rising Sun or the Japanese emperor, like a Jewish person despises anything related to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Pasting a Japanese flag on a Korean warship is like pasting a Swastika on an Israeli tank... Totally not done...

Also, both TVN (Three Meals A Day) and JTBC (Knowing Bros) were very smart with their programming and capitalized on the sloppy production of TKEM. For example, JTBC broadcasted additional episodes of Knowing Bros with the incredibly popular Mr Trot candidates. Initially they were planning to broadcast two weeks of episodes with the candidates, but due to the popularity they extended it with another week. This of course does not help TKEM in their recovery

No offence, but is this not a form of cherrypicking from Maximus? He is always talking about online buzz. Even citing domestic trending lists. But on all those lists, TWOTM, its main actors and even some of the supporting cast members have appeared above TKEM and its main leads when they aired simultaneously. By not a small margin, but by a gigantic margin. TWOTM has dominated TKEM on every front (both in online buzz and viewership ratings) domestically. Internationally it is a different story with Netflix etc., but I am questioning whether TKEM is able to overcome the significant gap with TWOTM has domestically with international viewers.

I compare TWOTM with the Super Bowl. Not a lot of people outside of the US watch it, but its domestic popularity is enough to make it much more popular than any soccer competition in the world that has more diverse and international viewers. South Korea has a population of 50 million. That is quite a big number. So the potential domestic market is already huge. Add the VIU watchers and I really doubt that The King is more popular.

You are welcome! I am glad you liked my humor. But if you scroll up, there is a recommendation list. Try one of those dramas and you should be alright

Try Sesame Street. A bit similar, but more mature, more spectacular and better acting

I think Hi Bye Mama and When My Love Blooms are the perfect example of what I do not like about TVN. What's Wrong With Secretary Kim is another. All started with a bang, but afterwards turned from great to good dramas. They can never keep up their momentum. You can see it also in the ratings, where the ratings are like a rollercoaster or remain steady for a long time before it has one big outlier in the finale.

The public channels on the other hand are actually way better with the pacing. For example, Hyena, Fiery Priest and When Camellia Blooms start off okayish, but then you are around episode 8-9 and you think to yourself: wow this is pretty good.

I am okay if it follows the Dr John, Chocolate or Memories of the Alhambra-trajectory, where I enjoyed 15 episodes thoroughly and then have a finale that does not make sense.

This drama can be really good or really bad. The trailers look good though.

Too bad it is on TVN. Besides one or two dramas this year, TVN has been quite lackluster in the production department lately. TVN is the cream of the crop when it comes down to the first four episodes. All their dramas start off perfect, pull you in, but then leave you with one big turd. I would have more faith if it was on JTBC. The public channels are also quite good with stretching out a story and keeping it interesting, but their dramas always start slow. Time will tell whether Kim Soo Hyun will complete the triple crown of post-army busts

Yes, he committed suicide. If you watch the two specials of TWOTM, the actor playing Park In Gyu also confirmed it. In Gyu did it because without Hyun Seo, there was nothing to live for anymore

You have an interesting view. You claim that TKEM is a success, because Studio Dragon/KES/SBS all sold their rights and CFs prior to broadcast. I mean, what you are applauding is essentially, a company selling a product for top dollar in advance and then delivering a product in substandard quality with no resell value. To me this is daylight robbery, but you call it a success...

Pulling a fast one is not a success. You can do it once, but not a second time. You bet your ass off that every party will remember this at the next negotiation. No one will ever blindly chip in money to a KES and LMH's project with no downside risk protection...

BTW, whether the parties actually pulled a fast one on each other is unclear to me, but I went with your argument and based my explanation on your "sources" and defense...

By reading Maximus' latest comment, I think he has finished his Phd-thesis in statistics and has now enough support to agree with my hypothesis that the majority of the 7000+ comments are written by at most 10 people and that a large part of the comments are negative

https://media.giphy.com/media/4NypHrF5NaWtO/giphy.gif

Thanks, I dedicated the name to Maximus...

To be fair, if we are really nitpicky here... Pound for pound Nokdu Flower is doing better than TKEM. Prior to episode 12, Nokdu never dropped below 6%. After episode 12, the ratings collapsed to TKEM's territory... I am so happy for TKEM that SBS is doing damage control by kicking out last week's Friday slot, because it would have dropped to 4%... I mean even the more successful Saturday broadcast dropped into the 5% region.

Geez, you are quoting an article from 13 April. The King premiered on 17 April. Back then, everyone thought that The King would hit 30% (myself included). Of course the CF value would be higher than LOTBS. But I can assure you that the CF value is now much lower than LOTBS...

I don't know whether there are 1000 comments. Why don't you ask Maximus to do the analysis for you? He is a statistics wizard. From using linear regressions on a sample size of 3, to comparing nationwide ratings with Seoul metropolitan ratings.

Secretively I always think that Maximus is just Donald Trump incognito. The rhetoric, sentence structure, exaggeration, style, reaction and rage is almost the same. Maximus even makes the same style of typos. When Maximus ended one of his/her comments with "Nice try! lol so funny". I could not stop reading it in Donald J's voice.

Hi Festivalen, most of your analysis is correct. But I want to correct you on one thing. You keep saying that it is performing more or less in line with other SBS shows, but I have to disagree with you on that point. Since SBS has introduced the Friday and Saturday slot with The Fiery Priest, only Nokdu Flower has performed similar. The others have performed way better. Fiery and Stove League were 15%-20% dramas. Hyena, Vagabond and Doctor John 10% dramas. TKEM is more a 5-8% drama. Which is significantly worse.

Without the hate comments and comments from Maximus, Pranksalot, W Two Worlds Season 2, Amy, Kimsamsoom and myself, this whole comment section is effectively empty. Almost no one else is talking about the show. Yes, 7000+ is a lot, but most of it is by the same people and complaints. Compare this with CLOY's section and you see that there is more diversity of commenters and more positive comments. I am pretty sure that Lee Min Ho and Kim Eun Sook want to have less, but more positive comments. But I guess Maximus is the type that rather have a lot of hate comments than no comments. I wish people such as Sulli and Goo Hara would have the same mentality as Maximus, then they would still be happy and alive

I wish I was pulling numbers out of thin air, but I am not. Go to http://www.nielsenkorea.co.kr/. Select "일일순위" and then "전국" (which stands for nationwide) and add all the viewers of all the episodes of "금토드라마(부부의세계)" (which is Korean for The World of The Married) and you will see that per episode (excluding the reruns), it did 4-5 million per episode on average. They reach 60m without a problem. For reference, The King does 1-1.5 million per episode in Korea. Even the rerun on 17 May 2020 of TWOTM (one day after the finale), achieved 1 million in viewership. Painful, mate, painful..

Regarding the domestic impact of TWOTM. One of the most reputable British newspapers wrote about it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/doctor-foster-remake-gets-pulses-racing-in-south-korea

“I used to catch up on sleep during the little free time I had,” says Choi Young-hoon, a 28-year-old bar owner in Seoul. “But I find myself arranging my schedule around this drama. I even discuss the plot in an online group chat with male friends.”

Regarding international impact of TWOTM, I'll admit it is less impressive than in Korea, but even so I can debunk your first statement saying that it has no international fans. This is a Singaporean article, but there are also Indonesian and Filipino articles written: https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/the-world-of-the-married-ends-on-a-high-sets-record-as-most-watched-south

"Engineer Francis Olarte, 36, said a friend recommended the show to him and he was hooked by the first 20 minutes, even signing up for a premium account on the Viu app to continue watching."

Now find me an article about the cultural impact of The King and also evidence that it has 60m viewers

People always claim that Kim Go Eun only had hits, but the truth is more nuanced.

For example, Cheese in the Trap was quite popular, but because of Park Hae Jin and Seo Kang Joon. People hated her so much that she was not casted for the Cheese in the Trap movie. She was replaced by Oh Yeon Seo.

Most people always applaud the bromance in Goblin, but never Kim Go Eun. If people have to point out the major weakness of the show, the majority will mention the annoying character of Kim Go Eun in the show.

Her third drama, TKEM, is also not really successful.

If you look beyond the numbers, you will realize that she is quite underwhelming. I am curious to see whether she will receive another opportunity to star in such a grand production as the sole female lead. Because her track record at first sight looks good, but on a second look clearly does not. She is more suited to be a second lead. She is not the type to carry a drama on her own. And Lee Min Ho does not have the potential to alleviate a good actress to S-tier level. Unlike the aforementioned Lee Byung Hun, who can help his co-star reach stardom by merely acting alongside her. Actually that is not totally true... Lee Byung Hun does have one flop. Memories of the Sword... But that was his first movie after his blackmailing scandal and Kim Go Eun was one of the main characters...

Wow Son Na Eun is a pretty awful actress... Haha... This drama is also super-cliche... It is also weird that Kim Hae Kyung does not know the name of Woo Do Hee. She straight up shouted her name to him when she was drunk and doing strokes in the swimming pool in Jeju.

But even so, it does not bother me and I think this drama is pretty nice to watch. Probably because I like the chill vibe

Online buzz does not automatically equate to more money. Are you saying that YG is a more profitable company than JYP? The former has a bigger online following... Guess what... JYP is more profitable... Why? Because YG fans love to stream/inflate the numbers, but not necessarily spend real money on their biases. JYP fans buy merchandise, CDs and tickets to dome concerts...

The only thing that equates to more money is viewership ratings as advertisers will pay more for a PPL and CFs during the breaks. Online buzz is only good when it leads to more viewership ratings... But here it does not... Just like the 7000+ comments on MDL lead to a lot of online traffic surrounding The King, but does not add any financial value to the pockets of Lee Min Ho and KES.