Titles

272 Korean titles charted somewhere in 2022 and 201 in 2025, while the places they held rose 2.3%. Remove each year's biggest title and the ten largest gained just 3.5 points — most of the concentration is one show returning.

Across 208,053 finished runs, a Korean film holds a country chart for 1.96 weeks on average and every other film for 2.02. Korean series run 3.72 weeks against 2.71 — and removing each group's biggest title barely moves it.

When a Korean title reaches a market's top three, the other Korean titles there fall by 0.395. Non-Korean arrivals cost 0.014. That looks decisive until you notice the two groups start from different heights.

Opening position is the only fact anyone has on the first Monday. Across 7,926 Korean series runs it moves expected length by 0.56 weeks a step — against 0.44 for other series, 0.33 for Korean films and 0.22 for other films.

Hold run length fixed and most of that gap closes — among titles that lasted five to eight weeks it is 26.6% against 28.6%. Among those that lasted nine weeks or more it does not close: 9.7% against 24%.

For each of 93 markets we took the median breadth of the Korean titles that reached it. Korea's own chart: 2. Estonia, Slovenia, Switzerland: 78, 76, 72. Most of that gap is how often a market plays Korean titles at all — but not all of it.

Titles with six to ten weeks on Korea's own Netflix chart reached ten countries 56.5% of the time, against 11.4% for those with one or two. But 29 reached twenty countries without ever charting in Korea.

Everything written about a chart is about getting on it. We measured 11,722 departures instead — the position a Korean title held the week before it vanished, against the 10.0% each rank would take if position did not matter.

Between 2022 and 2025 Korean share fell in all ten Asian markets we track, a mean of 9.68 points, and rose in 68 of the other 83. Japan went from 32.6% to 11.2%, and its distinct Korean titles from 62 to 38.

Among 165 Korean titles that reached 20 countries or more, the first week already holds a median 39.1% of the countries they ever reach. But 57 of them started under 25% and 33 were nearly everywhere at once.

Across 93 Netflix markets Korean titles hold 7.6% of chart places. In the 23 markets where their share runs 5–10%, they hold only 5.5% of number-one places. In the ten where they are strongest it inverts: 35.3% at number one against 26.7%.

Korean titles hold 7.6% of Netflix country chart places. Spread evenly that would put at least one on 54.8% of country-weeks; the real figure is 40.8%. Empty weeks run 59.2% against 45.2%, and crowded weeks 4.5% against 0.4%.

Of 134,279 times a Korean series reached two countries charts, 57.6% arrived in both the same week. Where one did come first, only 2 of 8,593 country triples contradict each other — the markets form one stable order.

The case that Netflix gained leverage over Korean drama runs through cost: $360,000 an episode in 2015 against $9.8m in 2024. We hold no budgets. We do hold the charts, and from 2022 to 2025 concentration fell rather than rose.

Of 938 gaps of four weeks or more that end with a Korean title back on a country chart, 45.2% carry a different season label — not a return at all. Of the 310 genuine returns, 94.8% happen with no other season nearby.

Netflix attaches hours viewed to 10,600 global chart rows and to 0 of its 493,600 country rows. Knowing a rank narrows the possible hours by 45.8% on the non-English series chart — least of the four, and the one Korean titles sit on.

They are a different kind of title: 2.21 markets on average against 4.67, and one in seven reaches #1 against one in two. Netflix's Korean chart is not a smaller version of the regional one — it is a different chart.

Across 493,600 country-chart rows, 18,586 weekly lists put one title in two or more places. Seasons explain 26,068 of the 26,093 extra rows. The 25 that are left are two different films sharing one name inside a single top ten.

We tagged every changed figure with the kind of mistake that produced it. One kind accounts for eight of the twenty-four. This piece went out with four kinds untested; every kind now fails the build, including the one found today.

Of 700 actors with two or more charting Korean titles, 61.6% have worked in both film and series. If format meant nothing, the figure would be 73.2%. The gap is the size of the wall, and it is smaller than reputation suggests.

Of the 397 Korean titles that reached Southeast Asia's top 10, Korea's own chart got there first for 46 and in the same week for 160 — and never charted 140 of them at all. Series enter together; films scatter.

Across 93 markets, 57.5% of Korean chart runs reach a higher rank than their opening week against 40.5% for everything else. Longer runs give more chances to climb — and the gap holds inside every run-length band.

One title takes 21.3% of all Korean viewing hours on Netflix; the biggest K-pop act takes 3.9% of English Wikipedia lookups. But half of all music attention sits on 4.5% of acts against 7.3% of titles on screen. No giant, steeper slope.

Riot flags a player on a winning run. Across Korea, Vietnam, Europe West, Japan and Southeast Asia the share sits between 18.7% and 20.0%. North America is 30.8%, on all four days — and the obvious explanation fails.

Measured on all 232 Korean titles instead of the fifty largest, the number-one group runs five weeks to everyone else's two. Hold length fixed and the gap that is left is 1.2× among titles that lasted six to ten weeks.

We asked Wikidata which countries made something with each of our 397 chart titles. Films come back ambiguous 58.1% of the time, series 23.6%. Short names are the reason, and Korean films get short names — but that is not the whole gap.

Across 93 markets the typical Asian one has charted 247 different Korean titles and the typical market elsewhere 85. Matching markets by how many Korean places they hold removes a third of that gap. Two-thirds of it survives.

Wikidata holds 2,128 Korean musical groups. Our attention panel sees the 816 with an English Wikipedia article. Among singers the gap is wider — 5,408 exist, we measure 1,421, and 3,572 of the missing ones have a Korean article.

We set out to count Korean group debuts by year and the query returned a clean decline. Then we ran it for three other countries and got the same decline. What we had measured was how fast Wikidata records new groups.

Across 93 countries and 265 weeks the global share has not moved since 2022. That average hides nine Asian markets where Korean titles held 30.3% of places and now hold 19.5% — all nine fell, and Korea's own chart did not.

Riot flags 54% of Korea's challengers as veterans of the tier and 29.4% of its grandmasters. In North America it is 36.8% and 13%. The top tier is where players stay everywhere — how much more it stays differs by region.

Month by month, Korean titles hold between 6.7% and 8.9% of the world's top-10 places. Remove each month's biggest title and the band gets wider, not narrower. What moves this number is releases, not the calendar.

Sixty-nine titles share an actor with Squid Game directly. Another 432 are one further step away. Out of 635 Korean titles with a recorded cast, 502 sit within two shared actors of one show.

Being in League of Legends' top 300 means 2,623 LP in Europe West and 1,061 in Southeast Asia. The distance between the top two tiers barely moves — 484 to 618 LP everywhere. The ladder's height varies; its step does not.

Wikidata records no cast at all for 266 of 901 Korean titles. Of the 635 that have any, the median series lists five people and the median film four. Here is what that does to every figure we publish from it.

Our panel never had a denominator. Wikidata records 782 Korean series and 1,120 Korean films from the chart era; 237 series and 160 films reached a Top 10. Series are twice as likely to be seen at all.

197 of 397 titles never reached a global Top 10, so Netflix's language label — the only thing that separates a Korean work from a foreign one with the same name — cannot be applied to them. They are also the small ones.

Europe West's challengers average 921 ranked games to Korea's 770 and Southeast Asia's 410. In five of six regions you play more to reach the top tier. In Vietnam you play less, on all four days measured.

In 2012 the two were the same size to within half a percent. Broadcast was ahead again as recently as 2022. In 2024 music pulled to $1.80bn against $1.26bn, the widest gap in thirteen years.

Of 660 Korean titles with a recorded cast, 639 form a single connected body through shared actors. We expected a few very busy people to be holding it together. Take out the 100 busiest and 93.5% is still one piece.

Among the 232 Korean titles Netflix has verifiably filed as Non-English, the median series charted in 35 countries and the median film in 11. Series also last longer — but the country gap is the one runtime cannot explain.

Of 397 Korean titles that reached a Netflix Top 10 in Southeast Asia since 2021, 45.1% charted in all six countries and 30.7% in exactly one. Series average 4.6 countries; films average 2.6.

For the typical act, the biggest single day is 5.5% of a 30-day month. For the ten largest names the median is 11.0%. BTS sits at 25.1%, and all six of its measurable members peaked on the same date.

154 of the 1,545 individuals in our K-pop panel also appear in Korean titles that reached a Netflix Top 10. They are 10% of the names and 32.6% of the attention. Removing them does not correct the list. It produces a second one.

Across 86 groups whose full membership can be measured, the members' pages were opened 3.88 times as often as the group's. Newer groups looked like the opposite until we checked why: Wikidata lists two members for Fromis 9.

The weekly charts carry nine columns and none is country of production. Match titles by name, as everyone must, and 17% of Korean viewing sits on names another country also uses. We measured the gap and publish its size.

Our Korean Netflix catalogue was 294 titles and 27.7 billion hours. It is 236 and 23.7 billion. Here is the mistake, how it spread, why counting alone would never have caught it, and what we changed so it cannot happen the same way twice.

Across 297 Korean productions with five or more recorded cast, the median has 16.7% of its cast appearing in nothing else that charted. The spread runs from 0% to 100%, and it separates prestige work from reality and youth casting.

Korea's top 300 League of Legends players win 53.65% of their ranked games — the lowest of six regions, on all four days we have measured. A win rate at the top is set by who you have to play, and in Korea that is everybody else.

Korean music exports went from $22m in 2005 to $1.80bn in 2024. Japan's share more than halved — but Japanese sales grew 1.7× since 2018 while North America grew 39×. The concentration broke because everywhere else caught up.

Five years of Netflix's global Top 10 hold 23.7 billion hours of Korean viewing. Squid Game is 21.3% of it, the 50 biggest titles are nearly three-quarters, and reaching number one multiplies a show's hours without lengthening its run.