What was the ‘best drama’ that captured the hearts of viewers this year?

As the year-end and the final review season returns, each broadcasting station as well as viewer ratings and topicality index research agencies are releasing their results one after another, and tvN‘s ‘Queen of Tears’ has been selected as the ‘Drama of the Year’.

With only two weeks left until the end of the year, ‘Queen of Tears’ seems likely to sweep almost all categories unless a drama that brings about a major turnaround comes out.

○‘Queen of Tears’ 1st place
According to a survey on this year’s drama topicality analyzed by Good Data Corporation, a TV/OTT topicality analysis agency, ‘Queen of Tears’, which depicts the crisis and love of a married couple in their third year of marriage, took 1st place.

This survey targeted TV dramas aired from January 1 to December 8 (the first week of December). The topicality score is calculated by synthesizing reactions such as online posts on various social media platforms such as news, blogs, YouTube, and Twitter, as well as comments, views, and retweets.

‘Queen of Tears’, starring Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won, tells the story of what happens after the wedding of the century between Hong Hae-in, the third generation of the Queens Group conglomerate, and the son of a rural village chief.

It delivered a thrilling experience by overturning the ‘Prince on a white horse’ cliche that is often found in romance dramas.

The drama garnered much attention both during and after its airing, and broke various popularity indicators.

According to Nielsen Korea, it also recorded the highest viewership ratings for a tvN drama of all time.

The final episode that aired on April 28 recorded 24.85%, which is higher than the highest viewership ratings for tvN of 21.68% set by the final episode of ‘Crash Landing on You’ that aired on February 16, 2020.

This is the highest viewership ratings among all dramas aired this year across terrestrial, comprehensive, and cable channels.

The ‘Best 1 Minute’ also came from ‘Queen of Tears’.

The scene in the final episode where Kim Soo Hyun throws himself to save Kim Ji Won who is in danger and gets shot and falls was a hot topic.

The drama‘s popularity has also been proven overseas.

It ranked first in the ‘10 Best K-Dramas of 2024’ announced recently by British pop culture magazine NME. NME explained its wide viewership and global popularity by saying, “Famous pop stars like A$AP Rocky and Rihanna also enjoyed ‘Queen of Tears’.”

The drama, which was released worldwide through Netflix, recorded 29.2 million cumulative views and 682.6 million viewing hours in the first half of this year, achieving the highest record among K-drama serviced by Netflix this year.

○‘Romance’…‘Seonjae Carrying Me Up and Running’, ‘Mom’s Friend‘s Son’ are also popular
Following ‘Queen of Tears’, ‘Seonjae Carrying Me Up and Running’, ‘Retirement’, ‘Mom’s Friend‘s Son’ took 2nd to 4th place respectively.

‘Seonjae, the follow-up drama to ‘Queen of Tears’,‘Take on My Shoulder’,’While it didn’t record high viewership ratings at the time, with an average viewership rating of 4%, it enjoyed popularity comparable to ‘Queen of Tears’ in terms of its thick fandom and buzz index.

Byeon Woo-seok, who played the lead role, rose to the ranks of top stars and boasted immense star power, enough to sweep up a considerable number of advertisements.


Reporter Lee Jeong-yeon annjoy@donga.com