The whole world was looking at “Squid Game” in the first three days after its first of season 3. The Dystopian thriller of director Hwang Dong -Hyuk made its debut in n ° 1 in the 93 countries where Netflix classified its audience – a first to stream it. The last season also obtained 60.1 million views worldwide during its first three days – another first.
And its audience should not increase. The first season is always the most watched title of all time, with 265.2 million views in its first 90 days. As for season 2, this ranks like the third most watched series of all time “Wednesday” with 192.6 million views.
It is not a specific phenomenon for a stroke of luck or even a “calmar game”. In 2023, the streamer undertook to spend $ 2.5 billion in South Korea over the next four years. As Netflix has increased its investment in Korean programs and films, viewers have adopted this sub-genre. A study commissioned by Netflix from the independent research company 2CV revealed that 60% of the 280 million Netflix users saw Korean content, with more than two -thirds of American subscribers who looked at K content for more than two years.
“Korean content is the most watched non-English-speaking emissions on Netflix, and it’s actually more than Spanish content,” Don Kang, vice-president of Korean content at Netflix, told Thewrap. It is notable since Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world, according to ethnologist. The Korean does not even make the Top 20. “It simply talks about the level of travel and the expansion that the Korean content appreciated via Netflix.”
At a time when television and the film are more globalized than ever, securing wholesale markets and buzzing has become vital. Prime Video is available in more than 200 countries and territories, while Netflix reaches closer to 190 countries and HBO Max is 65 years. Netflix has become one of the dominant streaming players because of its commitment to location rather than trying to force worldwide success. The world can be attentive to watch Korean content, but these programs come from local creators who are simply trying to tell Korean stories. This is a strategy that CCO Bela Bajaria has repeatedly stressed. And with the K content of Netflix, you can see it working.
Diesel Labs, a content business business that follows conversations on social media to assess people’s opinions, has found similar excitation levels. During the first three weeks preceding their launches, season 3 “Sirens” and “Ginny & Georgia” – two series which are considered as medium -sized English tubes – saw 1.6 million online commitments. The Korean romance “When life gives you mandarins” has seen 2.7 million commitments. “Squid Game” has achieved just 16.5 million commitments.
“He does not have the impression that it is a short fashion,” the president and chief executive officer of Diesel Labs told Thewrap anjali Midha.
Midha underlined the recently published “Kpop Demon Hunters”, an English -language animated film Sony which reached the list of the 10 best streams in the 93 countries and scored 33.4 million views in its first two weeks.
“Korean culture has become familiar enough for the United States to start investing in Korean stylistic content,” said Midha. “It suggests that it looks more like an anime. It is a genre that we will see more over time.”
In the second half of 2024, nearly a third of all visualizations on Netflix came from non -English shows and films. A study of the technological research group and OMDIA advice has even more eaten the trends in language viewers. In the first half of 2024, Korean emissions represented 8.71% of all non -English -speaking audiences on Netflix, while Spanish content followed by 7.11%. The observation of the Spanish language was also more than double that of the French, German and Portuguese vision combined.
The unexpected success of “squid game” in 2021 is one of the main reasons why Korean content has taken off. But K-Content’s global rise can also be attributed to Netflix’s continuous desire to invest in more recent Korean talents, a country that has made a serious effort to call on American media and a culture that prefers moral moral stories that can call on a large audience. “Squid Game” is perhaps the biggest example, but the era of K-Content is only the beginning.
K-Content benefits from the Netflix effect
The Korean wave took off for the first time in the 1990s when emissions like “What is Love” and “Star in My Heart” became popular in China. The phenomenon finally began to emerge in Japan in the early 2000s, which led to an increase in Korean tourism, and had a niche after the United States, but it was only when Netflix entered the playing field and “parasite” won the Oscar for the best film in 2020 that the K-Content television show has changed.
“K-Dramas have been around for the 1960s for a long time, but it was only with the entrance to Netflix where production values have really become higher,” Steve Choe, Korean media scholar, told Thewrap. Since the increased investments of Netflix in K-Content, Choe has noticed that more from its students come from places like the Middle East, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe.
The first original Korean series of Netflix paved the way for its future investments. Based on the webtoon series “The Kingdom of the Gods”, the “kingdom” of 2019 was an ambitious thriller which combined an period drama which takes place in the 17th century with Zombie Horror.
“No other television channel or streaming services at the time in Korea would only make something like that,” said Kang. “So we have always tried to be a place where you can tell stories that no one else will tell on a scale that has never been done before.”
“Netflix offers opportunities to young filmmakers and writers who are not yet created,” the assistant professor of Korean studies at Arizona State University told Thewrap. “If you look at Korean broadcasting stations, they tend to go with renowned directors and writers of the big name. They don’t want to take their chance with young writers because they could flop, so that they work with the same screenwriter again and again.”
Regarding the projects in which investing, Kang always prioritizes priority first: teams and creators of South Korea who make Korean stories for the Korean public. “The main thing is to find this unique voice in your own country or region,” said Kang.
Why the public cannot have enough
At first glance, it may not seem that there is a common thread between a program on murderous children’s games like “Squid Game” and a cross -border romance like “Crash Landing on You”. But for Choe, it is the easy morality of these universes that is attractive and even comforting for the public. The sources of distress are often wide and relatable, whether the weight of a patriarchal system or the evils of capitalism.
“They are therapeutic for people around the world who suffer from circumstances independent of their will,” said Choe.
Another reason for their popularity has to do with the quality of production. Using his AI model that was formed on social media responses, Diesel Labs found that people praise lighting, costume, twists and developing the character of K-Content. It is notable, considering that one of the great complaints concerning non -American shows is often that they seem or feel inexpensive.
Midha also noted that South Korea has made a concerted effort in the last decade to expose more of its culture, music and content to the rest of the world. “It is remarkable to see the success that these efforts have had. I do not know that another country was so precise on the desire to export content in this way, “she said.
Choe echoes his analysis, noting that there was a close relationship between Korean content and his government for a long time. When Korean ambassadors go to the United States or Europe, it is not unusual for them to meet the heads of streaming platforms in these countries.
The future of K-Content on Netflix
Netflix does not intend to alleviate its love story with South Korea.
The streamer is preparing to launch “Physical: Asia”, a spin-off of the series of unicenized “Physical: 100” unicked competitions, as well as season 2 of “Culinary Class Wars” and the show show “Better Late that single”. On the scripted television front, “Genie, Make a Wish”, a new romantic comedy by the creator of “The Glory” Kim Eun-Sook, is on the horizon alongside new dramas like “The Prix de la Confession”, “Trigger”, “As You Stack by” and “You and All Else”, as well as comedies like “Aema”? Netflix even invests more in Korean films with “Wall to Wall”, “Mantis”, “Good News” by Byun Sung-Hyun, “Great Flood” and the latest film by director “Burning” Lee Chang-Dong.
“If you look at the volume of the shows we have produced, it has regularly increased,” Kang said.
Overall, Netflix’s investment in K-Content has proven to be positive for the country. The 2CV study revealed that 67% of Netflix users say that they feel positively about South Korea, against 37% of non -Netflix users, with an equal amount of Netflix users expressing their interest in visiting the country against 41% of non -Netflix users.
But some hesitate to note the increased dependence of South Korea with regard to streamer, in particular at a time when the creation of K is increasingly expensive. A great source of concern concerns the lack of residues. The creator of “Squid Game”, Hwang, has become the unofficial poster child of this concern, because he spoke publicly in the past of how his contract for season 1 contained no clause for bonuses related to performance. He assured later at the time when he was paid more for the seasons 2 and 3. “It improved, that’s for sure. That’s why I did it,” said Hwang.
Although Jeong considers Netflix’s investment in South Korea as a “profitable partnership”, she also noted that “discussions are underway concerning intellectual property rights and if Korean creatives are paid fairly”.
“We are trying to be fair, of course. It is just for us to treat the creators fairly if they have such massive shows,” said Kang. “We are trying to match the industry standard. We pay them from the start, and we take all the risks in terms of appeal or if it is a flop. All financial responsibility is the responsibility of us, and we pay them at the market top, despite everything. ”
As for the increase in production costs by K-Content, Kang considers it less worrying and more a symptom of an increasing entertainment ecosystem. “For someone to say that production costs have increased, it means that people who make the spectacle are more in remuneration,” he said.
