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Count the hours: K-drama in the wake of “Squid Game”
10 October 2022
No one – not even Netflix (by its own admission) nor Korean creator Hwang Dong-hyuk – predicted the wild success of "Squid Game", which is said to have cost just under US$21.5 million to make and was watched for more than 2.3 billion hours between 13 Sept 2021 and 19 June 2022. But of course everyone – including Netflix – hopes that the next drama may hit it out of the same park.
So far, nothing has come even close. Which isn’t to say the Korean drama landscape is without surprises. Few – with perhaps the exception of Korean production house Astory, which refused to sell Netflix all rights and partnered with Skylife/ENA for the domestic release – would have predicted that legal drama, "Extraordinary Attorney Woo", with its relatively meagre budget of about US$15 million for 16 episodes and lesser-known stars – would have topped the list of non-English global TV titles for seven consecutive weeks and, over 13 weeks, attracted more than half a billion viewing hours during its run on the top 10.
At 590,610,000 viewing hours – about 26% of "Squid Game" and at 70% of the budget – "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" is also considered a hit, with more than double the viewing hours over 13 weeks than period drama "Alchemy of Souls" (222.2 million hours viewed in 13 of the 14 weeks from 27 June to 2 Oct), but less that high-school zombie horror series "All of Us Are Dead", which was viewed for 659.51 million hours (29% of "Squid Game’s" hours) in the 11 weeks from 24 Jan to 10 April 2022.
Korean thriller, "Narco-Saints", at 122.8 million hours in its first four weeks on the charts (5 Sept-2 Oct) seems to be Netflix’s hope of the moment as far as Asian drama goes, followed by romance/fantasy "Young Lady and Gentleman" (93 million hours in six weeks); and Studio Dragon mystery, "Little Women" (57 million hours in four weeks), part of a trend that has seen Korean titles dominate Netflix non-English TV top 10 with more titles than any other country in Asia or the rest of the world.
While other platforms are ...
No one – not even Netflix (by its own admission) nor Korean creator Hwang Dong-hyuk – predicted the wild success of "Squid Game", which is said to have cost just under US$21.5 million to make and was watched for more than 2.3 billion hours between 13 Sept 2021 and 19 June 2022. But of course everyone – including Netflix – hopes that the next drama may hit it out of the same park.
So far, nothing has come even close. Which isn’t to say the Korean drama landscape is without surprises. Few – with perhaps the exception of Korean production house Astory, which refused to sell Netflix all rights and partnered with Skylife/ENA for the domestic release – would have predicted that legal drama, "Extraordinary Attorney Woo", with its relatively meagre budget of about US$15 million for 16 episodes and lesser-known stars – would have topped the list of non-English global TV titles for seven consecutive weeks and, over 13 weeks, attracted more than half a billion viewing hours during its run on the top 10.
At 590,610,000 viewing hours – about 26% of "Squid Game" and at 70% of the budget – "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" is also considered a hit, with more than double the viewing hours over 13 weeks than period drama "Alchemy of Souls" (222.2 million hours viewed in 13 of the 14 weeks from 27 June to 2 Oct), but less that high-school zombie horror series "All of Us Are Dead", which was viewed for 659.51 million hours (29% of "Squid Game’s" hours) in the 11 weeks from 24 Jan to 10 April 2022.
Korean thriller, "Narco-Saints", at 122.8 million hours in its first four weeks on the charts (5 Sept-2 Oct) seems to be Netflix’s hope of the moment as far as Asian drama goes, followed by romance/fantasy "Young Lady and Gentleman" (93 million hours in six weeks); and Studio Dragon mystery, "Little Women" (57 million hours in four weeks), part of a trend that has seen Korean titles dominate Netflix non-English TV top 10 with more titles than any other country in Asia or the rest of the world.
While other platforms are not a fraction as transparent about performance as is Netflix, it’s pretty much impossible to know with this kind of details how specific Korean titles perform elsewhere. Our guess is that, at best, it’s a fraction.
Published in ContentAsia's October 2022 magazine for Mip Junior/Mipcom
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