South Korean TV Phenomenon Goes Way Beyond ‘Squid Game’, Netflix Viewing Data Reveals

Jesse Whittock
·4 min read
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The South Korean TV phenomenon goes way beyond Squid Game, as revealed by Netflix’s newly-released landmark viewing data report.

Series from the Asian country such as The Glory, Physical: 100 and Extraordinary Attorney Woo feature consistently at the summit of the 18,200+ title viewership data report that the streamer released this week, our analysis of the chart reveals. The data dump covers 99% of the Netflix catalog, as our extensive breakdown noted yesterday.

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Deadline has calculated that content from South Korea accounted for a combined 3.71 billion hours in the top 100 titles in Netflix’s chart. The table reveals viewing data from the first six months of 2023.

It should be noted that South Korean series tend to run longer than many other countries — 17 hours on average compared with nine for those from the U.S.

Squid Game, the drama series that sparked the global interest in Korean streaming programs, clocked up 87.2 million hours, making it Netflix’s 120th most popular title during the measured period, quite the feat given that it launched more than two years ago.

This week’s viewership data backs up Ted Sarandos’ bullish approach to spending on content in the nation.

The Glory, the psychological revenge thriller series from writer Kim Eun-sook starring Song Hye-kyo, was the third-most viewed title in Netflix’s list overall, behind only The Night Agent and season 2 of Ginny & Georgia. The series dropped in two batches, one in December 2022 and the second in March 2023, and garnered an overall 622.8 million hours.

Unscripted show Physical: 100 was next on the list with 235 million hours, followed closely by limited series Crash Course in Romance (234.8 million hours). Doctor Cha took 194.7 million hours and Alchemy of Souls part 1 totalled 155.3 million. Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which was garnered attention in the U.S. after launching in 2022, picked up 135.9 million hours. If Alchemy of Souls‘ first and second parts are counted as one, they clock up 305.5 million hours, making it the second-most watched South Korean title.

In truth, Korea’s popularity should come as little surprise. The country has become a huge strategic focus for Netflix following the breakout success of Squid Game and more than $2.5B has been pledged for content in the country over the next four years. Co-CEO Sarandos has said that 60% of its global subscribers have sampled Korean content and, furthermore, Korean series and films have reached the Netflix Top 10 charts in more than 90 countries.

Latin American value

Analysis of the top 100 Netflix titles also highlight the value of Latin American content — Colombian television in particular.

Original Colombian dramas series Fake Profile (Perfil Falso) and The Marked Heart (Pálpito), which are shorter and more like U.S. formats than traditional ratings-grabbing telenovelas, sat happily in the top 100 alongside Caracol TV’s 2012 novela Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mar, an acquisition that clocked up 170 million hours, and RCN Televisión’s Til Money Do Us Part (Hasta que la Plata Nos Separe; 152.1 million hours). Novelas usually run to dozens, if not hundreds, of episodes and have been a staple of Latin American TV viewing for decades.

Spanish, British, Mexican, Thai, French, German, Turkish, Danish and Japanese shows and films feature in the top 200 Netflix titles, alongside numerous U.S. titles.

The Netflix data dump — the largest of its kind to date — will no doubt be adopted by creatives in several countries where contract negotiations with streamers and networks are underway or set to begin in 2024.

Many unions and guilds are already planning to use the contracts secured through the WGA and SAG-AFTRA negotiations with the AMPTP as a blueprint for their own battles, as they seek better compensation for titles that perform well on streaming services. The perceived lack of transparency around streaming content was among the most bitterly-fought battlegrounds in the U.S.

It should be noted that Netflix’s viewing data released this week doesn’t provide a complete picture of the SVoD platform’s titles, measuring content differently to the weekly ratings charts it releases. Opposite to the ‘views’ metric of the weekly charts, the ‘hours viewed’ measurement benefits longer series, placing shorter-run shows and films at a significant disadvantage.

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