Well, I loved WFKBJ and Healer, they’re still two of my favorites, especially Healer. I didn’t know they didn’t…
Both dramas did well. This article is incorrect. WFKBJ was popular in South Korea but Legend of the Blue Sea was more popular. It was amongst other reasons due to Lee Min Ho. Healer was also popular. It had a lot of buzz domestically and it won 3 awards.
Yeah, was going to mention that as well. Moon that Embraces the Sun was the enormous hit that year, but Bridal…
It feels so good to write this: I completely and utterly agree with what you and Palak have said! It's the most accurate information I have read in this article and comments!
Are there any dramas that weren’t a international success, but had great rating domestically in Korean?
Normally Saturday/Sunday dramas tend to be more popular in Korea than abroad. I don't know why but I am going to risk guessing that they're more family orientated and not so focused on reaching the audience 18-40 years old demographics.
My Golden Life was really popular in Korea but my impression is that it wasn't overly popular abroad while compared to other dramas but I am not certain about this and I might be wrong so please when it comes to this drama don't take my words at face value.
The four dramas are great. Higher than what was being broadcasted at the time. Especially Healer, Moon lovers…
Taste is relative. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad and Korean dramas are Korean. Just because they don't like a drama that is popular abroad doesn't mean they have bad taste. The same way just because international audiences don't like a drama that was really popular in South Korea doesn't mean they have bad taste either.
Korea dramas have to cater to their market not the international one.
The fact that there are dramas that are made equally having in mind providing a global appeal, i.e. filming abroad, have foreign actors appearing here and there and so forth only shows their commitment in making Korean dramas more global and appealing to international audiences.
true. The ratings are mainly based on TV airing ratings. Majority of the time the ratings for one drama is low…
Ratings of a drama are not mostly based on TV airings.
You can also measure dramas online and movies and so forth, online. You can measure a lot of things as long as you can quantify them, even qualitative data, if you can quantify it.
The ratings that are mentioned for the dramas in Korea which as you will know are done by AGB Nielsen & TNmS Ratings Nationwide and then for Seoul alone.
"Majority of the time the ratings for one drama is low cause another drama airing at the same time is more popular. Or people just don't like the cast."
This is not correct. Just because a drama has lower ratings doesn't mean the one that has higher ratings is more popular. A drama popularity is not defined by ratings alone. There are a lot of other variables which need to be taken into account before you can can accurately make that assumption including word of mouth, online shares, streams, downloads...
Two dramas or three or all dramas at the same time can have similar ratings, alternating the rating leads between them. This doesn't mean one of them is more popular. One episode of a drama might be more popular one day and the next an episode from another drama.
Not liking the cast doesn't explain low ratings alone. One might not like the cast but like the story and will watch it or watch it because there's nothing else to watch or because their husband/wife/child/cousin watches it. There can be countless of reasons why a drama has low ratings i.e. poor directing, poor script, poor special effects, poor dynamics between the cast...
If you aren't certain about what you are saying google it but don't say things as facts when in reality they are not and are not accurate. This is misleading those that read your article and trust your words to be accurate and at face value.
Thank you so much for writing your article. I enjoyed reading it, despite not agreeing with it.
I questioned myself about what methodology you have used to say that the above mentioned dramas were popular abroad and not popular in South Korea. There is no data here that supports anything you have said.
There was only a mention of ratings and ratings per se are not enough to state how successful or unsuccessful a drama is. You need to have other variables in consideration such as buzz, online/offline Word of mouth and so forth. Saying that for the purposes of my comment I am going to use your "ratings".
Healer for example which aired on KBS 2 was loved domestically and internationally. The series that started off with a meager (for the time) 4% ratings saw them go up because of online buzz and word of mouth. People were talking about it in Korea, a lot! It started as the underdog but it won 3 wards at KBS end of the year ceremony.
Also, could you please clarify how average ratings of 18% for Bridal Mask are and I quote you "the ratings in South Korea were average". How does 18% is average in South Korea? How was the drama more popular abroad? It received countless nominations for awards, countless. A look at wikipedia would have shown you that. Even back in the day it was not considered average. It was considered good. There's a difference.
Rooftop Prince aired in 2012, it was popular, average ratings 12.1%. Love Rain was not very popular in South Korea. Average ratings 5.1%. To the Beautiful You, very popular abroad. In Korea it didn't have any countable ratings. Big, average 8.7%.
Weightlifting Fairy for an MBC drama didn't do good ratings wise but this is easily explained. The drama which aired Wednesdays and Thursdays between November 2016 and January 2017 competed with Legend of the Blue Sea (with Lee Min Ho which is a Korean favourite actor as you know and Jun Ji-hyun (who did You who Came from Another Star). This was their first project in a while so naturally people would be drawn to it. Ratings wise it had an average of 16.7%. Oh My Geum-bi which aired at the same time on KBS2 had similar ratings to Weightlifting Fairy.
Weightlifting Fairy was popular in South Korea except that Legend of the Blue Sea was more popular. If international audiences were only able to watch dramas on tv and not being able to record them, considering how popular Lee Min Ho is abroad it's not difficult to guess which drama would take the lead and win the race.
The last drama on your list - Moon Lovers. I am going to agree with you here that domestically it sank. It was a failure however it's important to understand why it was a failure. The reasons for it not being successful were: the adaptation of the story wasn't good; the performances except for Lee Joon-gi's were lackluster and the director Kim Kyu-tae style was not the best one. Also Love in the Moonlight was airing at the same time and not only did it have an orginal story compare to ML remake (average ratings 7.32%) but also had Park Bo Gum, was extremely well produced, acted, it had chemistry between the leads and had a fantastic OST which justified a 16.9% average ratings. Both ML and MDBC were sucessful internationally.
Saying that, If international audiences were only able to watch dramas on tv and not being able to record them, considering how popular Park Bo Gum is and the drama trailers it's not difficult to guess which drama would take the lead and win the race here either.
Everything that I have written here, you already know if you did your research. For the international audiences you could use MDL ratings but to make it accurate you need to check i.e. Netflix and Viki and analyze the information together but you can only do it if the information type is the same otherwise you wont be able to. You can't compare Apples with Oranges and Kiwis. They're fruit but not the same kind of fruit. Also this information wont be able to be generalized unless you have a representation of the entire population and for that you need information pertaing streaming and downloads amongst other variables. The K-Drama international audience is diverse and heterogeneous and the exact numbers and demographics are at the moment unknown.
i would be interested to see hard numbers for the domestic vs international market. one well kept secret in kpop…
South Korea is the 6th biggest music market worldwide. It's bigger than Brazil who has appx 4 times its population and they do make a lot of money there. Granted they make more money in Japan.
K-Dramas in majority are catered to the domestic audience and I said in general as there are dramas being produced and aired at domestically at the same as internationally. You can google this information. It's available.
"here are certainly dramas that could benefit from the story telling styles of other countries [...]"
I see what you mean here but while I agree they they could benefit, I don't think that they should venture that route at all as it would mean they would be doing dramas to cater to outsiders and that would remove, on my opinion the appeal that K-Dramas have. If they were any different they might as well be a drama from any other country. This would mean they would become mainstream standardized and that is removing their unique selling proposition which would be detrimental to their own market.
I can tell you for sure that kpop has more international fans than domestic ones. When I was in Korea, the majority…
“I can tell you for sure that kpop has more international fans than domestic ones.”
- South Korea has appx 50 million people. The rest of the world has an excess of over 1.5 Billion, so it makes sense that it has more K-Pop Fans than South Korea, however fact 1: the majority of all music consumption in Korea is Domestic; fact 2: the exact number of K-Pop fans worldwide is unknown; fact 3: not everyone who listens to K-Pop or goes to a K-Pop event is a fan of the genre. It needs to be defined first what constitutes being a 'fan' before one can even start to make assumptions, least of all valid ones without a proper theoretical background and field research to support it.
“When I was in Korea, the majority of Korean people I interacted with was listening to foreign music (USA music), krap or other kmusic genres.”
- I have been to South Korea as well. I have lived there in fact and I can tell you that Koreans mostly listen to Korean Music, not Foreign, this is a fact. K-Pop is extremely popular with children, teenagers and young adults in Korea and BTS is popular with adults up to the age of 40. This doesn't mean that the adults who like BTS are fans of K-Pop or listen to K-Pop, no, they are fans of BTS and listen "BTS pop"- that's the new term, that's and that's a big difference for them.
“Regarding the dramas, people were very surprised to hear that kdramas are so popular outside Korea, in other countries apart from China and Japan. Some of them didn't even know that there are Asian streaming sites.”
- This is true. A great number of Koreans are unaware of how popular K-Dramas are in the West. Koreans that have lived abroad do know.
“What i noticed is that younger generations don't have so much time to watch dramas, which is understandable, considering they work long hours.”
- Younger generations study extremely long hours, some might even have part-times, so they don’t have the time to watch dramas on TV.
In 2018 South Korea was the 6th biggest music market worldwide with a growth of 18% in revenue. You can check the IFPI report for more information.
A Poll about the market size here would give you an idea of the market, a very small idea. In order to accurately ascertain the market size it involves a solid methodology and a great deal of market research, including time. "Marketing Research" by Aaker et al. is a good start to read about methodologies, regardless of the edition. You can find it on Amazon.
Data about the K-Pop market is available, it might not be what you are looking for and it might be dated so when looking at it, look at it with a grain of salt. Saying that, the biggest Boyband in the world at the moment is BTS.
Regarding K-Dramas it’s important to keep in mind that what is domestically appealing doesn’t necessarily translates in foreign appeal and vice-versa, however there are dramas which have a high foreign appeal, which is growing strongly in the West in part due to Netflix, and I stress the words, in part as K-Dramas have been popular internationally for a very long time. Netflix however made them more widely available.
If you decide to do the researh I'd love to read it. Let me know if you need any literature recommendations for your theoretical background. Also there's a very good book on "Survey Research Methods" by Fowler. It's worth checking it out!
Jin Ru Yi is the most annoying, self-centered in this 'would be great story' if she had less screen time or woke up to life. Xu Xuan loves Bai Su Zhen! How many times does she need to be told that? How many times does she need to be shown that to understand it? Aparently billions and she still refuses to understand! The story's pace is already slow, several times plot recycled but it's good to watch. It would be better if Jin Ru Yi was less in viewers faces. This character is literaly ruining the drama for me!
Riiiiight. I can't believe they still haven't done a remake of this masterpiece. If and when they do, you can…
:) Thank you so much! :) I am happy you enjoy my articles! Domyoji's one has a lot of pink the article but somehow it had to be pink! :) I don't know if you know but HanaDan the Movie has a photo book which I have discovered recently and had to buy it! I'm not sure if it's something you might be interested in but here's the link: (it's second hand. The one that I bought was also second hand but it's really good) https://www.amazon.com/Photobook-Hana-Yori-Dango-nonno/dp/B0018CKUQS/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=hana+yori+dango+photo+book&qid=1554626556&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull You can also find this on ebay. The book is in Japanese and i don't read Japanese but somehow I really had to buy it! The photos are really nice and it's Hana Yori Dango!!!
Riiiiight. I can't believe they still haven't done a remake of this masterpiece. If and when they do, you can…
I've watched!!! :) I loved the cameos. Matsuda Shota is also doing a cameo! They do!!! :) I was so happy with their cameo!!! I wrote an article about it - fangirling over domyoji! Hana Nochi Hare brought back so many memories of HYD! I love that version!!! Love, love, love!!! :)
1 
Healer was also popular. It had a lot of buzz domestically and it won 3 awards.
My Golden Life was really popular in Korea but my impression is that it wasn't overly popular abroad while compared to other dramas but I am not certain about this and I might be wrong so please when it comes to this drama don't take my words at face value.
Korea dramas have to cater to their market not the international one.
The fact that there are dramas that are made equally having in mind providing a global appeal, i.e. filming abroad, have foreign actors appearing here and there and so forth only shows their commitment in making Korean dramas more global and appealing to international audiences.
You can also measure dramas online and movies and so forth, online. You can measure a lot of things as long as you can quantify them, even qualitative data, if you can quantify it.
The ratings that are mentioned for the dramas in Korea which as you will know are done by AGB Nielsen & TNmS Ratings Nationwide and then for Seoul alone.
"Majority of the time the ratings for one drama is low cause another drama airing at the same time is more popular. Or people just don't like the cast."
This is not correct. Just because a drama has lower ratings doesn't mean the one that has higher ratings is more popular. A drama popularity is not defined by ratings alone. There are a lot of other variables which need to be taken into account before you can can accurately make that assumption including word of mouth, online shares, streams, downloads...
Two dramas or three or all dramas at the same time can have similar ratings, alternating the rating leads between them. This doesn't mean one of them is more popular. One episode of a drama might be more popular one day and the next an episode from another drama.
Not liking the cast doesn't explain low ratings alone. One might not like the cast but like the story and will watch it or watch it because there's nothing else to watch or because their husband/wife/child/cousin watches it. There can be countless of reasons why a drama has low ratings i.e. poor directing, poor script, poor special effects, poor dynamics between the cast...
If you aren't certain about what you are saying google it but don't say things as facts when in reality they are not and are not accurate. This is misleading those that read your article and trust your words to be accurate and at face value.
Winter Sonata was extremely big domestically and worldwide! Extremely!!!
Please check your facts or better, check wikipedia (the link is below):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Sonata
I questioned myself about what methodology you have used to say that the above mentioned dramas were popular abroad and not popular in South Korea. There is no data here that supports anything you have said.
There was only a mention of ratings and ratings per se are not enough to state how successful or unsuccessful a drama is. You need to have other variables in consideration such as buzz, online/offline Word of mouth and so forth. Saying that for the purposes of my comment I am going to use your "ratings".
Healer for example which aired on KBS 2 was loved domestically and internationally. The series that started off with a meager (for the time) 4% ratings saw them go up because of online buzz and word of mouth. People were talking about it in Korea, a lot! It started as the underdog but it won 3 wards at KBS end of the year ceremony.
Also, could you please clarify how average ratings of 18% for Bridal Mask are and I quote you "the ratings in South Korea were average". How does 18% is average in South Korea? How was the drama more popular abroad? It received countless nominations for awards, countless. A look at wikipedia would have shown you that. Even back in the day it was not considered average. It was considered good. There's a difference.
Rooftop Prince aired in 2012, it was popular, average ratings 12.1%. Love Rain was not very popular in South Korea. Average ratings 5.1%. To the Beautiful You, very popular abroad. In Korea it didn't have any countable ratings. Big, average 8.7%.
Weightlifting Fairy for an MBC drama didn't do good ratings wise but this is easily explained. The drama which aired Wednesdays and Thursdays between November 2016 and January 2017 competed with Legend of the Blue Sea (with Lee Min Ho which is a Korean favourite actor as you know and Jun Ji-hyun (who did You who Came from Another Star). This was their first project in a while so naturally people would be drawn to it. Ratings wise it had an average of 16.7%. Oh My Geum-bi which aired at the same time on KBS2 had similar ratings to Weightlifting Fairy.
Weightlifting Fairy was popular in South Korea except that Legend of the Blue Sea was more popular. If international audiences were only able to watch dramas on tv and not being able to record them, considering how popular Lee Min Ho is abroad it's not difficult to guess which drama would take the lead and win the race.
The last drama on your list - Moon Lovers. I am going to agree with you here that domestically it sank. It was a failure however it's important to understand why it was a failure. The reasons for it not being successful were: the adaptation of the story wasn't good; the performances except for Lee Joon-gi's were lackluster and the director Kim Kyu-tae style was not the best one. Also Love in the Moonlight was airing at the same time and not only did it have an orginal story compare to ML remake (average ratings 7.32%) but also had Park Bo Gum, was extremely well produced, acted, it had chemistry between the leads and had a fantastic OST which justified a 16.9% average ratings. Both ML and MDBC were sucessful internationally.
Saying that, If international audiences were only able to watch dramas on tv and not being able to record them, considering how popular Park Bo Gum is and the drama trailers it's not difficult to guess which drama would take the lead and win the race here either.
Everything that I have written here, you already know if you did your research. For the international audiences you could use MDL ratings but to make it accurate you need to check i.e. Netflix and Viki and analyze the information together but you can only do it if the information type is the same otherwise you wont be able to. You can't compare Apples with Oranges and Kiwis. They're fruit but not the same kind of fruit. Also this information wont be able to be generalized unless you have a representation of the entire population and for that you need information pertaing streaming and downloads amongst other variables. The K-Drama international audience is diverse and heterogeneous and the exact numbers and demographics are at the moment unknown.
K-Dramas in majority are catered to the domestic audience and I said in general as there are dramas being produced and aired at domestically at the same as internationally. You can google this information. It's available.
"here are certainly dramas that could benefit from the story telling styles of other countries [...]"
I see what you mean here but while I agree they they could benefit, I don't think that they should venture that route at all as it would mean they would be doing dramas to cater to outsiders and that would remove, on my opinion the appeal that K-Dramas have. If they were any different they might as well be a drama from any other country. This would mean they would become mainstream standardized and that is removing their unique selling proposition which would be detrimental to their own market.
- South Korea has appx 50 million people. The rest of the world has an excess of over 1.5 Billion, so it makes sense that it has more K-Pop Fans than South Korea, however fact 1: the majority of all music consumption in Korea is Domestic; fact 2: the exact number of K-Pop fans worldwide is unknown; fact 3: not everyone who listens to K-Pop or goes to a K-Pop event is a fan of the genre. It needs to be defined first what constitutes being a 'fan' before one can even start to make assumptions, least of all valid ones without a proper theoretical background and field research to support it.
“When I was in Korea, the majority of Korean people I interacted with was listening to foreign music (USA music), krap or other kmusic genres.”
- I have been to South Korea as well. I have lived there in fact and I can tell you that Koreans mostly listen to Korean Music, not Foreign, this is a fact. K-Pop is extremely popular with children, teenagers and young adults in Korea and BTS is popular with adults up to the age of 40. This doesn't mean that the adults who like BTS are fans of K-Pop or listen to K-Pop, no, they are fans of BTS and listen "BTS pop"- that's the new term, that's and that's a big difference for them.
“Regarding the dramas, people were very surprised to hear that kdramas are so popular outside Korea, in other countries apart from China and Japan. Some of them didn't even know that there are Asian streaming sites.”
- This is true. A great number of Koreans are unaware of how popular K-Dramas are in the West. Koreans that have lived abroad do know.
“What i noticed is that younger generations don't have so much time to watch dramas, which is understandable, considering they work long hours.”
- Younger generations study extremely long hours, some might even have part-times, so they don’t have the time to watch dramas on TV.
In 2018 South Korea was the 6th biggest music market worldwide with a growth of 18% in revenue. You can check the IFPI report for more information.
A Poll about the market size here would give you an idea of the market, a very small idea. In order to accurately ascertain the market size it involves a solid methodology and a great deal of market research, including time. "Marketing Research" by Aaker et al. is a good start to read about methodologies, regardless of the edition. You can find it on Amazon.
Data about the K-Pop market is available, it might not be what you are looking for and it might be dated so when looking at it, look at it with a grain of salt. Saying that, the biggest Boyband in the world at the moment is BTS.
Regarding K-Dramas it’s important to keep in mind that what is domestically appealing doesn’t necessarily translates in foreign appeal and vice-versa, however there are dramas which have a high foreign appeal, which is growing strongly in the West in part due to Netflix, and I stress the words, in part as K-Dramas have been popular internationally for a very long time. Netflix however made them more widely available.
If you decide to do the researh I'd love to read it. Let me know if you need any literature recommendations for your theoretical background. Also there's a very good book on "Survey Research Methods" by Fowler. It's worth checking it out!
You will love the photo book! It's amazing! :)
Domyoji's one has a lot of pink the article but somehow it had to be pink! :)
I don't know if you know but HanaDan the Movie has a photo book which I have discovered recently and had to buy it! I'm not sure if it's something you might be interested in but here's the link: (it's second hand. The one that I bought was also second hand but it's really good)
https://www.amazon.com/Photobook-Hana-Yori-Dango-nonno/dp/B0018CKUQS/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=hana+yori+dango+photo+book&qid=1554626556&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull
You can also find this on ebay. The book is in Japanese and i don't read Japanese but somehow I really had to buy it! The photos are really nice and it's Hana Yori Dango!!!
They do!!! :) I was so happy with their cameo!!!
I wrote an article about it - fangirling over domyoji! Hana Nochi Hare brought back so many memories of HYD! I love that version!!! Love, love, love!!! :)
I hope they do a remake!!! :) Like you I will definitely watch that!