The legs on this drama, now I wonder what it could have done if it was a 20-episode drama like former cable network ratings champion Sky Castle. Hit jTBC Fri-Sat drama The World of the Married signed off today with its final episode 16 bringing in 28.261% ratings. That’s so high in the stratosphere I don’t even know how to compare it, and former cable rating leader Sky Castle ended with 23.779% which is also impressive but it was obtained with a 20 episode run. The World of the Married ratings means over 1 in 4 households that subscribed to cable was watching it, amazing and such a well earned win for female lead Kim Hee Ae who rightfully so is getting majority of the acclaim for bringing in viewers with her strong performance. When drama ratings were free falling during the 2013-2015 era there was a time when I wondered if K-dramas were headed for the graveyard but I’m so glad I stuck around to see there are still peaks to go along with the valleys.
I m happy for park hae joon too. He will get lead roles now. Kim hee ae is top actress over 30 ywars bow and now again repeaked. What a longevity. On side note what selfish set of parents. Never cared about child’s mental health andonly about their revenge.
drama averaged over 18.8% rating it is like peak episode rating of sunshine reply and goblin. It is average for this drama. What the hell . It is massive????a very well made drama. If kim hee ae doesnt wins grand prize, it will be robbery
Great acting is the main point of this drama. No hype no fancy fringes no nothing, simple as it can be….
I haven’t watched the original so I can’t compare. Made me nervous all the time as it’s unpredictable. Worried for Sun Woo’s mental and psychological state in the early episodes, thought she’s gonna go crazy. Tae Oh is shameless, hated his character.
Congrats team world of the married couple!
Also male lead is very attractive. I never found him hot before but he was really a hot daddy in this show???
Never thought SC would be overtaken in ratings this soon and now you have to wonder what could possibly top this drama in ratings.
This record is hard to beat. JTBC is slowly becoming the face of cable television. In the past, it is only tVN but time ran so fast for them to be replaced in an instant.
Best drama ever. Great writing, directing and acting. I give a “special compliment” to Kim Hee Ae who will win multiple Daesangs for her awesome performance. Average ratings : 18,83 %. The hype is no joke. It would be hard to beat it soon.
Wow.Congrats.Happy for the whole crew.
Excellent acting! Ratings cannot lie. Directing, Editing, Acting are all topnotch.
No one mentioned that this drama also popular worldwide… they did great on tv and online. Trending on Twitter and got many viewers on viu. Is it available on Netflix too??? 28% on cable.. even this year weekday dramas on national tv only got 21 or 23%, camelia and dr kim. Chukae… a daesang to get back home.
Yes, it is on Netflix in Canada.
Ouch none for US
Are you from Canada? I don’t think it’s available in Canada.
It is like 46% in a public channel. Wow!
Very well-deserved. Such an awesome drama indeed. Truly a delight to find this gem esp since it largely went under the radar before it aired. This is proof that good script and good acting are essentials to the success of a drama.
For any people interested in other statistics. The live version had more than 6,000,000 viewers. Reruns – the are multiple per day – are doing also 3-4%, which equals approximately 700,000 viewers each time. So in SK they have easily 8-10 million viewers. On VIU, 55% of the viewership is TWOTM.
In comparison, TKEM has 1,000,000 TV viewers at c. 7-8% (9m less). They are doing even lower on the majority of the episodes. TWOTM brings in ten times the amount of ad money than TKEM (and is cheaper to produce). For people that are saying that TV viewers are not important, think again. Remember a TV viewer is worth more than a commercial-free international Netflix viewer for an advertiser. Because all the advertised brands are Korean and their main target group are Koreans. As many Shin Ramyuns that are sold internationally, it will always pale in contrast with the amount consumed in Korea.
There is a reason that PPL are so blatantly obvious on TKEM, because they cannot get the same ad money from TV. By putting it as subtle PPL throughout the show, advertisers will not get bang for the buck. Because the downside of clever PPL is that you do not notice it very well, so that is why it is so overly present. I mean it is quite difficult for the untrained eye to spot PPL as there are cultural differences. That is why I cannot really hate on TKEM’s attempt to unshamelessly promote Chongga kimchi. If they did not do it so obvious, the Netflix viewer (i.e. the international viewers) would just go to the supermarket and buy some random kimchi to see how it tastes. Imagine they are coming home with Bibigo kimchi… That would be a disaster for Chongga. In order to avoid these awkward intermezzos throughout, the PPL should come from familiar brands such as Nespresso, Mercedes or Nike. But these brands already have international recognition, so they are certainly not going to pay the top buck. Another alternative is to just straight up call the kimchi by its brand name. Like Parasite did with jjapa-guri (Jjapaghetti and Neoguri). But imagine all the fines that SBS has to pay if KGE starting to shout “pass me the Chongga” every time on public channel
What is your point here? A bad drama is a bad drama. The King is like an extended version of TV Ad. It is a very long washroom break for most people. LOL. And STOP bringing unnecessary loser drama to this article!
I believe this is not the right place for stupid advertisement articles as it has nothing to do with the success of this drama. Unless, someone is jealous of the success achieved by TWOM.
What is the point of the article about advertising when it talks about the high rating of TWOM?
I am translating the viewership ratings to potential profit. I am strictly comparing both TV-shows to show that TWOTM is a bigger success story than TKEM, in every aspect. To people these ratings are just percentages, they have no meaning to them. TKEM’s fans will use the Netflix excuse and claim TKEM is more popular. But I tried to translate it to absolute numbers, so people will realise that TKEM is at least ten times less popular than TWOTM on TV per episode. If TKEM does not pick up in the coming weeks, TWOTM will have 100 million+ more TV viewers over a stretch of sixteen episodes. This is a bridge that you cannot cover simply via Netflix and that is why The King resorted to shameless PPL. I hope that this insight will stop TKEM fans from using Netflix as a gauge of popularity and downplay the importance of TV-viewership. People cannot understand that online streaming, although it is becoming increasingly more important simply is not an indicator for success. Just like idols rather sell 10 million physical CDs than get 1 billion views on Youtube, TV viewers are not 1 on 1 replaceable with Netflix viewers in kdrama. But tbh, it is same old-same old. The majority already knew this, except for the diehard TKEM fans.
“idols rather sell 10 million physical CDs than get 1 billion views on Youtube” thank you for that analogy. Would TWOTM be such a big deal if it wasn’t for the monster ratings? Ratings are everything for TV productions, just like how box office sales is to movies.
Hands down for this drama. So good. Been on number 1 trending on Twitter since yesterday night in Nigeria..
I still remember when it’s considered massive success when a cable drama rating reached 1% and the first one to achieve it is also Kim Hee Ae’s drama A Wife’s Credentials, also aired on JTBC.
Funny that the ML was called Tae Oh as well in A Wife’s Credentials
Well deserved. congrats.
When sky castle set a record for 23% I was wondering what drama breaks that record. I cant help thinking of the same now. this drama is a wall, its great wall of China at the moment and Im just wondering if any drama ever can get close to this numbers!
It was very unpleasant story to watch with unlikable characters but I couldn’t stop….I guess that’s how you know it was a well executed drama.
The ending was brilliant. Very organic, realistic. The ex wives having trust issues, the mother finally realizing what a control freak she was, the ex husband realizing how low he had sunk when his son decided to run away than live with his toxic parent, no romantic happy ending with the second lead psychiatrist…..
Also very smart to end it at 16 episodes.
I belong to the minority. This one was OTT alternating with draggy at times for me, nowhere as captivating as Sky Castle.
The drama deserved the ratings. Great acting especially from Kim Hee Ae. Congratulations.
This drama deserved every single amount of attention it got. It’s nice to see the Korean population responding so well to such mature, intense and perhaps controversial drama. Hopefully the success of TWOM and SC opens the door for the Korean companies to produce more dramas like this in the future. It’ll be nice to see the Korean drama scene deviate themselves away from the cliche romantic dramas and start to produce more diverse genres.
I really loved Kim Hee Ae in Secret Affair. Her acting was fab! However I don’t really have an appetite for this plot at this moment, so I guess will be keeping this drama in my to-watch list until later.