Baek In Ho:
I saw a post by a Lee Min Ho's Instagram fan account that TKEM has raked the 19th place of the 20 currently most-watched series on Netflix worldwide (the only K-drama that makes it to the list).
I also saw a comment by another user saying they come to MDL to vent their frustrations or excitement since Netflix does not have comments section LOL.
Do you think international rating matter as much, or more than the local rating for K-dramas since Netflix has also started to join in and air them concurrently?
Well in my opinion international success matters more in South Korea
I have some points in my mind I will try to write down although I am not good at explaining plus my English language skills are very basic
hallyu or international popularity has a huge part in Korea's economy.they earn much from international viewers and music listeners so they pay attention to hallyu stars you guys must have noticed one thing Korean Artists who survive for years in industry are mostly hallyu stars you can take example of super Junior also Korean beauty industry is becoming huge just because of their hallyu stars and their relationship is becoming good with other countries because those countries common people like Korean celebrities and they are huge in numbers they are interested in South Koreans that means Koreans import export business is becoming more and more successful
As you all people know that Korea produce many singers and actors every year.there is so much talent and so much competition in drama and music industry so survival in this kind of industry is very difficult specially when Korean people don't bear a little mistake of their celebrities) so international fans are not just important for Korean economy but also for artists
Drama production also have advantage in international popularity because if their drama is in demand outside of Korea they can earn so much by selling rights so even if ratings don't go well and their drama have international popularity so they are in no loss at all
Also drama production can receive money for their production from those brands who are interested in becoming international or other international brands
I think because international popularity is so important in Korea that's why they have special award for them (hallyu star award)
Anyway these are just my personal thoughts and I have many more thoughts like that on international popularity vs domestic popularity.In my opinion international popularity is really a big thing specially in Korea
As for this drama I think it's surely popular internationally but it's also doing good domestically
My first thought on ratings were also that it's really low but later on I realised that even if ratings are not really good but it's not bad also there is even 3% ratings for some currently airing korean dramas and even they are not called flop
Plus I have a feeling that this drama was made to attract international viewers because those who are working on it they must be already aware of these ratings because these kind of dramas are not for everyone not everyone like fantasy Gener plus it's really hard plot to follow (to me it's really worth watching) plus the reason they chose min ho is also because they wanted to make it big internationally and min ho also chose this because he wanted to do a project which not just his domestic fans but also his fans from all over the world can enjoy because everyone was waiting for him so I think that is also the reason despite the low ratings all of crew and cast members are calm and focusing on their work and being top 20 on Netflix must be a good news for them