K-Drama ‘Yong Pal’ Continues To Dominate Korean Television — Viewership Ratings Are Above 20 Percent Again

The VIPs for Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) must be extremely happy right now because of the company’s show Yong Pal. The K-drama about a doctor who does “house calls” for gangsters to continuously pay off his debts to keep his sister alive has thoroughly enjoyed great ratings since its debut back on August 5, 2015. As a matter of fact, Yong Pal broke the 20 percent rating barrier in its sixth episode, a feat unheard of for K-dramas as of late. The only K-drama that even comes close to such success is Producer, and it only got such ratings on its series finale.

Now with just four episodes left in Yong Pal, it has proven to be the best K-drama for 2015 so far. And as of now, it is probably the most profitable K-drama for SBS given the fact that the ratings are above 20 percent viewership yet again.

For those who do not understand how viewership ratings work in Korea, Korean shows are rated by the percentage of the population tuned in to watch, either it be K-dramas, K-variety, or anything else. As for the populations used, one rating is for the entire nation of South Korea while the other is for Seoul alone. TNS Media Korea (TNmS) and AGB Nielson (AGB) are the two prominent companies that figure out the ratings for both. According to the AsianWiki for Yong Pal, only one episode received a single-digit viewership rating and that was the debut episode for the nationwide rating by TNmS at 9.2 percent. Still, that is a very good rating for any episode of any Korean program.

As for the rest of the episodes of Yong Pal, they are all in the double-digits with half of them being over 20 percent on any specific rating. However, KdramaStars is quick to note the latest episodes have the highest ratings ever with the 13th episode at 23.7 percent and the 14th episode at 22.3 percent on the AGB rating for Seoul.

KdramaStars also provided the ratings of other shows that air on the same days with Yong Pal. She Was Pretty by the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) increased its ratings to 7.2 percent, a 2.4 percent climb from its premier. Finally, Assembly airing on the second channel for the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS2) concluded with terrible ratings at 4.9 percent, doing worse than The Time We Were Not In Love.

Yong Pal airs on SBS on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9:55 p.m. KST. For those who don’t have access to SBS, it is possible to view it for free (with ads and if available in said region) on both Viki and DramaFever.

[Image via Yong Pal/SBS Promotions]