Just like almost every other Korean drama airing on South Korean TV yesterday, Korea-Khitan War, Episode 19 experienced a huge ratings drop on Saturday night.
Both nationwide and with audiences in Seoul.
The latest data from Nielsen Korea shows the nationwide rating drop for Episode 19 of the popular KBS2 drama was 2.10 percent — with the K-drama’s audience share falling from Friday night’s 10.0 percent to Saturday evening’s 7.9 percent.
The Korean drama also saw a similar fall in ratings from audiences in Seoul, scoring a 6.4 percent rating, which is a drop from Episode 18’s much stronger 8.7 percent on Friday night.
Why did Korea-Khitan War, Episode 19’s ratings fall?
But, with every K-drama airing on Saturday night seeing a ratings drop (except for Welcome to Samdalri, which saw a slight ratings increase), it is obvious there is a legitimate reason for the fall in audience share — and it is not because audiences are now tired of the hit historical drama.
Instead, the ratings drop for almost every Saturday evening drama in South Korea, including Korea-Khitan War, was due to the coverage of the AFC Asian Cup game between South Korea and Jordan last night.
Koreans as a nationality are football lovers, and especially when the home team is playing.
Hence, as someone said on X (formerly Twitter), you can only imagine the number of Korean households arguing over the remote when it came to watching football or their favorite Saturday night drama.
The next episode of Korea-Khitan War, Episode 20, will air later on tonight on KBS2 and, if my hunch is correct, the popular Korean drama will be back to close or higher than double digit ratings.