In 2020, there were a few things that changed. Here is a little overlook at what happened this year in the K-Drama industry: what happened due to COVID-19, the rise of online content and Netflix, an increase of dramas based on webtoon, the start of the BL genre in Korea, the return of top Hallyu stars to the screen, and finally the themes that were popular this year. Postponed & Paused Dramas, Restricted Overseas Filming Due To COVID-19
Drama schedule changes
The most hated word by K-Drama viewers is “결방” (kyeolbang) or “episode cancel” but this year it had been heard a lot of times. Due to sanitary reasons and actors being in contact with COVID-19 positive actors and/or staffs or even themself being in quarantine, dramas’ schedules have seen a lot of changes.Some dramas just took a break in the middle of the broadcast while some changed their airing date. For example, “Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol” first planned to air on Aug. 26 but ended up airing on Oct.7 due to concern about COVID-19 on the set. Some drama also postponed their final episodes for the same reasons such as “More Than Friends”.
Actors testing for COVID-19
On top of this, fans have been going through the stress of hearing news about actors and staffs testing for COVID-19. Some tested positive such as Heo DongWon and Kim WonHae, while thankfully a lot turned out to be negative such as Park ShinHye, Kim DongJun, Kim SoHyun, Go Ara, Lee JaeWook, Ji Sung, Shin HyeSun, Kim JungHyun, Ji ChangWook, and much more!
Impossibility to go for overseas filming
Due to the pandemic, it is dangerous and difficult to travel. The visa conditions have been changed for many countries. Some countries do not accept Koreans or require quarantine. Also when coming back to the Korean peninsula, the travelers (Korean or foreign) must undergo quarantine for 14 days which is also not easy for celebrities schedule.Because of these reasons, filming overseas for dramas or movies have been reduced drastically. Some of you would remember that back in March, Song JoongKi had to come back from Columbia in the middle of filming the movie “Bogota” where 90% of the movie was supposed to be filmed in South America.Another example is the drama “When I Was Most Beautiful”. The staff couldn’t film in the U.S. so Im SooHyang and Ji Soo filmed in Jeju Island (South Korea) the scenes needed.However, there are some exceptions such as Hyun Bin, Hang JungMin, Kang KiYoung, and other actors who have traveled to Jordan for filming the movie “Negotiation” (with 8 days of quarantine on arrival in Jordan and 14 days back in Korea). They could not enter the country at first because Jordan had closed their border to Korea. Increased In Demand Of Online Content: Netflix, KakaoTV, Web DramasWith people staying at home, Netflix had gained a lot of new users across the globe but also in Korea where they gained a huge amount of subscribers. But it is not the only online platform that has increased its users.There has been a growing demand for online content this year.
Launch of KakaoTV
Kakao launched a new streaming platform: KakaoTV. It opened in the second half of 2020 and they had prepared an impressive actors’ lineup with popular idols and Hallyu actors. For example: “Lovestruck in the City” with Ji ChangWook and Kim JiWon, “A Love So Beautiful” with WEi’s Kim YoHan, “Love Revolution” Park JiHoon and THE BOYZ’s YoungHoon, etc.KakaoTV “digital” dramas or web dramas have high quality. They have invested a lot in their content and production.
Continue growth of popularity of web drama
In 2019, web dramas were already popular (e.g. “A-TEEN 2”) and there were already quite a lot of them. But in 2020, there seems like there were a lot more productions of web dramas (casting including idols or not).Their popularity is also growing. In and out of Korea, there have been a lot of popular web dramas such as: “Best Mistake 2”, “Twenty Twenty”, “XX”, and “The World of My 17”. They had more than 4 million views for their first episode (YouTube + V-Live views combined). For example: “Best Mistake 2” had 6.3M views (5.1M + 1.2M) for its first episode, “Twenty Twenty” 3.9M (2.5M + 1.3M), “XX” 5.3M (4.1M + 1M + 700k), “The World of My 17” 5.4M (4.2M + 1.2M), etc.PLAYLIST studio (the most popular web drama channel) joined collaborations for dramas to air on TV channels. With the popularity of its stories, they have extended their plots for TV dramas such as “Live On” with NU’EST’s MinHyun, Jung DaBin, Noh JongHyun, Yang HyeJi, ex-MOMOLAND’s YeonWoo, and VICTON’s ByungChan on JTBC (2020) and “Dear.M” with NCT’s JaeHyun, Park HyeSu, Bae HyunSung, and Roh JeongEui on KBS (2021) Netflix New Step Into K-Dramas
More Korean content on Netflix
Are you a Netflix user? Not all K-Dramas fans are users of Netflix but the platform is gathering a lot of K-Dramas. It is buying the copyrights of a lot of Korean dramas and also starts to have their own Korean content.There is a demand for K-Dramas on Netflix by new dramas fans that just discover them on Netflix, already K-Dramas fans, and the Korean consumers.
K-Dramas and K-Contents popular worldwide on Netflix
K-Dramas such as “The King: Eternal Monarch”, “It’s Okay To Not Be Okay”, “Record of Youth”, “Sweet Home”, and “Start-Up” ranked in the top TV shows on Netflix in the world (FlixPatrol Data), and K-Content such as “BLACKPINK: Light Up the Sky” also made it on the top 10 worldwide.It is no surprise to see the popularity of K-Dramas worldwide but with numbers, it is even more visible.Moreover, the Netflix Original TV show “Twogether” with Korean Lee SeungGi and Taiwanese Jasper Liu was popular too with a team with two nationalities.
More Korean Netflix Original Series
The first Korean original series was “Kingdom” back in 2019 followed by “Love Alarm”. In 2020, Netflix produced more Korean Original contents such as “Sweet Home”, “The School Nurse Files”, “Extracurricular”, “My Holo Love”, etc. Netflix is mostly focused on thriller content and love stories.There are new original series coming in 2021 such as “The Silent Sea” with Bae DooNa and Gong Yoo, “Hellbound” with Yoo AhIn, Park JungMin, and more, “All of Us Are Dead” with Yoon ChanYoung and more, and more. More top actors are also in talks for Netflix dramas such as Kim SooHyun and Ji ChangWook. “Love Alarm” season 2 is also highly awaited.Netflix is creating a whole new era (?) for K-Dramas with its original productions. K-Dramas Based On Webtoon IncreaseIn 2020, there has been an increase of K-Dramas based on webtoon this year compared to last year.In 2018, there were around 9 dramas with “Your House Helper”, “What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim”, “My ID is Gangnam Beauty”, etc. In 2019, there were around 10 dramas with “Love Alarm”, “Hell Is Other People”, “Extraordinary You”, “Her Private Life”, “Tale of Nokdu”, etc.In 2020, there were 19 dramas (11 dramas and 8 web dramas) with “Itaewon Class”, “Mystic Pop-Up Bar”, “Meow, The Secret Boy”, “Memorist”, “Rugal”, “True Beauty”, “Backstreet Rookie”, “Sweet Home”, “Love Revolution”, “The Uncanny Counter”, etc.But that is not all, as a lot more webtoons were announced to be produced soon. There are already more than 18 webtoons confirmed to be adapted in K-Dramas in 2021. Dramas adapted from webtoons are popular. The Start Of BL in KoreaIf you watch Chinese or Thai dramas, you would be used to BL (Boys Love). It is popular but was not existing in K-Dramas before 2020.In Spring 2020, the very first BL Korean drama “Where Your Eyes Linger” was released. It is still only a web drama, not a drama but it was popular. Following the interest in this web drama, other web dramas of that genre have followed on different subjects.“Where Your Eyes Linger” was high school students’ love story, “Mr. Heart” of athletes, and “Wish You” of musicians, and more. The genre is just starting but it is significantly growing with more and more productions of BL. The Return of Big NamesIt is not really a “change” but it was a major factor for the popularity of K-Dramas this year.The return of Lee MinHo and Kim SooHyun in the K-Drama world cannot be missed. With their highly awaited return to the small screen, they gathered a lot of interest and proved their never-ending popularity. Lee MinHo’s last drama was in 2016 and Kim SooHyun in 2015, it was a long wait for fans.For those of you who might not know, according to the survey “2019 South Korean National Image” by the Korean Culture and Information Service released on Feb. 2020, Lee MinHo was ranked third most mentioned person by respondents as the person who came to their mind when they thought of Korea (after President Moon JaeIn and BTS).Lee MinHo and Kim SooHyun’s Instagram followers increased so much following their return. Lee MinHo even became the most followed Korean actor on Instagram (previously Lee JongSuk) by gaining over 9m followers in around 9 months times (12.6m on Apr.3 and 21.6m on Dec.23). He also has a huge gap with Lee JongSuk who has 16.8m followers (on Dec. 23), now the second most followed Korean actor. Following his return on screen, Lee MinHo became the first Korean celebrity with over 20m on Instagram and Facebook.Kim SooHyun made it to the top 10 most followed Korean actors on Instagram. He gained over 5.8m followers in 7 months (3.1m on June 4 and 8.9m on Dec. 23). Both of them still keep on increasing their followers.On the other side, top Hallyu actors such as Lee JongSuk (doing his military service) (last drama in 2019) and Song JoongKi (last drama in 2019) had no drama this year. Time Travel, Infidelity, Mental HealthIn 2020, there was a lot of high budget fantasy (“The King: Eternal Monarch”, “Tale of the Nine Tailed”, “Mystic Pop-Up Bar”, etc) and some about parallel worlds and/or time travel: “The King: Eternal Monarch”, “Train”, “Alice”, “Kairos”, and “365: Repeat the Year”.Also, there has been a rise in interest in dramas touching on infidelity in married couples after the popularity of “The World of the Married” earlier year (this was not the first one on this theme to be popular but it was a hit). It was followed by dramas such as “Cheat on Me, If You Can”, “My Dangerous Wife”, “The Penthouse: War in Life”, etc.The main change this year is the spotlight on mental diseases in K-Dramas. In “It’s Okay To Be Okay”, the whole drama is talking about mental diseases as the lead character works in a psychiatric ward, his brother (also lead) has Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the lead female character has an antisocial personality disorder. In the drama “Alice”, the lead character has alexithymia and in “Flower of Evil”, the lead character has an antisocial personality disorder.What were the biggest changes in 2020 for you?
