JTBC’s latest Friday drama Still Shining, starring Park Jin Young and Kim Min Ju, is drawing attention for showing two very different results at the same time.
While the series is reportedly sitting in Netflix’s Top 3, its TV ratings remain in the low 1% range, continuing the pattern that has followed JTBC’s Friday drama block since it launched last year.
After four episodes, Still Shining recorded its highest rating at 2.1% for episode 1, then dropped to 1.7% for episode 2, before falling further to 1.2% for episodes 3 and 4. Rather than building momentum after its premiere, the drama has followed the same downward trend seen in other Friday dramas in the slot.
That broader trend is becoming a growing talking point. According to reports, all four dramas released under JTBC’s Friday Series so far have struggled to break out in traditional ratings, with previous titles also staying in the 1% to 2% range on average and failing to cross 4%.
Many are now pointing to the scheduling itself as the main issue. JTBC’s Friday Series airs two episodes back to back every Friday at 8:50 PM, a format that some critics believe does not match how younger viewers actually watch dramas today.
Pop culture critic Kim Sung Soo said the back to back format appears to be designed for binge style viewing, but argued that it does not fully work because viewers cannot choose their own watching time if the broadcast is fixed on Friday night. He also noted that Friday evening is not an especially strong time slot for younger audiences to tune in live.
At the same time, he suggested that dramas like Still Shining may simply be better suited for OTT platforms than live TV, which helps explain why the show is performing much better on Netflix than on traditional broadcast.
With Still Shining currently ranking in Netflix’s Top 3 despite staying in the 1% ratings range on JTBC, the drama is becoming a clear example of how streaming popularity and broadcast ratings can now tell two very different stories.
Source: [1]
