SBS is trimming the fat and focusing on the the focal problem of its disastrously low-rated weekend dramas. None of them are written in ways that appeal to the core weekend audience, namely families wanting to watch stories about fictional Korean families that are wackier or way more entertaining than their mundane lives. It doesn’t have to be makjang, though plenty of weekend dramas swim in that sauce, but it does have to cut down on the trendy and embrace the family issues.

That’s something screenwriter Moon Young Nam excels at judging by the all-win ratings sweep she achieved with her last K-drama Wang’s Family for KBS. She’s now being lured over to SBS to write a mini drama for the network struggling to turn its last place weekend spot around. SBS is also slimming the waistline by ending drama airing at the 9 pm time slot while keeping the more popular 10 pm drama slot. This just reminds me of SBS adding an extra drama hour on Mon-Tues for two years awhile back only to pull the plug since all those 9 pm dramas ended up being low-rated and may even have cannibalized attention from the 10 pm slot.

Wang’s Family was soooooo popular when it aired and for good reason, it had the bickering extended family dynamic down pat and all the main characters had their own interesting side stories. Some other even earlier dramas have also garnered her solid response, from Suspicious Three Brothers to Live in Style to Famous Princesses. I find her drama easy to watch but not terribly sticky for me so I usually peter out my watching and basically forget about continuing on at some point. Still this is great news for SBS that it’s working with an established screenwriter with a good track record in the weekend time slot. Anything is better than the recent relentless battering.