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| ▲This photo, provided by JTBC, shows "Reborn Rich." (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲This photo, provided by tvN, shows drama "Hospital Playlist." (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲This photo, provided by MBC, shows "Please send me a fan letter." (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, Nov.19 (Yonhap) — The content industry has changed with the emergence of Online video service (OTT), and “twice a week" and "16 episodes," which were commonly applied to TV dramas, is also changing.
According to broadcasting industries on Saturday, each broadcasting company is putting efforts to adapt to new content formats such as short and mid-form videos or to different viewing behaviors such as "Binge-watching.”
Dramas which were aired twice a week, divided into Mondays and Tuesdays; Wednesdays and Thursday; and weekends, in the past are now organized into three times a week and once a week etc.
JTBC has organized their new drama “Reborn Rich” starring Song Joong-ki to air three times a week; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. JTBC has organized weekend dramas only twice a week on Saturdays and Sundays until now.
JTBC made such a decision because with genres in which immersion and speed are vital, the method of binge-watching the previous episodes one after another has become a trend.
Producer Jung Dae-yoon, who directed “Reborn Rich” said at a recent press conference that, "At first, I thought it would be too much, but most dramas on OTT these days release the entire episodes at once,” adding, “I thought it is a trend that viewers want.”
On the contrary, there are dramas in which they are organized only once a week to increase the completeness of the drama and improve the production environment.
tvN's "Hospital Playlist" was organized once a week for both seasons 1 and 2.
Producer Shin Won-ho, who directed, said that considering the production environment, he decided to air the drama only once a week, and viewers also sympathized with the poor production environment of dramas that frequently shoot overnight to meet the time, giving positive feedback.
Some works have chosen to air once a week after securing some viewers. This also reflected the situation in which filming was delayed due to the COVID-19.
Unlike the previous season of organizing twice a week, SBS TV "Penthouse 3" was organized once a week, and for TV Chosun's "Becoming Witch," which ended in September, it was aired twice a week until episode 6 and then once a week for the rest of the episodes.
The length of the drama is also all different. Most of the mini-series broadcasted after the evening news in the past were composed of 16 episodes, but recently, there have been a noticeable number of 12-episode dramas, and four-episodes, slightly longer than one-act plays, have been appearing, showing that dramas are becoming shorter.
Popular dramas like SBS TV's "Business Proposal,” tvN's "Little Women," and KBS 2TV's "Bad Prosecutor" which ended this year are all composed of 12 episodes.
Compared to the 16-episode series, the narrative was compressed, complimented for speedy storyline.
Main character of “Business Proposal,” Kim Se-jung said, “The advantage of the 12-episode series is that the episodes are intense and the story line unfolds fast because unnecessary scenes can be omitted.”
MBC last year produced two dramas that won the drama series competition last year as four-episodes series. They are “Hunting Wild Boar” (translated), which ended last August, and "Please send a fan letter," which debuted on Nov. 18. Producer Jung Sang-hee, who directed ""Please send a fan letter," said, "I wanted to make it complete with four episodes rather than lengthening it to 16 episodes."
An official from a broadcasting company explained, "If writers wrote dramas in a set format of 16 episodes in the past, now the production environment had changed and the drama materials became more varied, so the length is determined by the size of the story."
"Since viewers are familiar with OTT dramas and prefer short contents, it is natural for broadcasting companies to move to this direction," adding, "It is expected that more short-episode dramas will appear in the future."
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Jiwon Woo.)
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