"Because This Is My First Life" vs"We Married As a Job"?
If you’ve been a K-drama fan for a while now, you have run the gamut of shows: the hour-long dramas (standard), the hour plus a few minutes episodic dramas (DOTS, Goblin), the mini-dramas (Click Your Heart, Choco Bank), and your half-hour shows (Something About 1%). All these shows have either made you laugh, cry, or throw a temper tantrum if you’re watching a show in real time.
However, these formats are changing. Again. You might have noticed it recently with current shows like The Best Hit and Suspicious Partner. They are broken down into two half-hour episodes shown in a day, four in a week.
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The three major public broadcasters (KBS, MBC, and SBS) in Korea have changed formats on how K-drama viewers are going to watch their shows. They have reduced weekday and weekend shows to 60 minutes while soap operas have been limited to 30 minutes with commercial breaks built in (Hong, 2017). These changes are put in effect to reduce cutthroat ratings and stagnant market shares (Hong, 2017).
These adjustments are not new. Time restrictions have been put in effect since 2009 and revisions have been made in 2013.
The underlying reason for the time restrictions is profit. If an average of two episodes per 20-episode series is reduced, the company saves approximately 1 billion KRW ($880,000). (SBS, 2017).
Although many fans, locally and internationally, are upset about these changes, there are two main factors forcing these changes. They are China’s reduction of Korea’s imported cultural content and the decreased demand of the Hallyu market in Japan (Hong, 2017).
The only way these broadcasting companies can recoup their losses is by decreasing labour and production costs and increasing the product placement and commercial breaks. (Hong, 2017).
As a viewer, these changes should be a welcoming sight. Take for example the show Something About 1%. Compared to its 2003 version boasting 26 episodes with a tepid 6.6 rating, the 20-minute episode cut out major fillers, concentrated on the main characters, and stuck to the overarching story. To top it off, the 2016 version is highly rated at 8.6 at 16 episodes.
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Another takeaway for having half-hour long episodes like Something About 1% is that the episodes are long enough to watch while waiting at a doctor’s office or getting an oil change. The need to finish an hour-long episode is not as painful anymore.
Forget about product placement (despite being needed by the show to get more money for production and international fans struggling to buy said items). Better work conditions (looking at you, Drinking Solo) and tighter writing will definitely help the K-drama industry thrive especially in the international market.
Again, this is just an instance where the half-hour episode works. As I currently finish watching Suspicious Partner and The Best Hit, time will only tell whether the new format would definitely show tighter writing or better editing and content.
(gif by fyeahjichangwook)
References:
Hong, C. (2017, February 20). 3 Major Public Broadcasters Considering A “60-Minute Rule” For Dramas. Retrieved from https://www.soompi.com/2017/02/22/3-major-public-b...
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What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks for reading!
