Titles

Of the four titles we checked against Netflix's own weekly country tables, KPop Demon Hunters topped 76 of the 93 countries carrying it (81.7%). Agent Kim topped only 25 of 81 (30.9%).

Not one show — 30 different Korean titles traded the number-one TV spot on South Korea's own Netflix chart 32 times, without a single non-Korean title breaking in, from April 2022 to December 2023.

The Great Flood and Squid Game both peaked at number one in 93 countries, the widest reach in our panel of 974 Korean Netflix titles. Squid Game stayed on the charts 60 weeks. The Great Flood managed 11.

Two thresholds set by the data itself — 6+ weeks on a country's Netflix top 10, charting in only 1 country — catch 24 Korean titles. Three genuinely travelled abroad. The other 21 never charted anywhere but South Korea.

Mattel and LEGO are only now dating their KPop Demon Hunters toys. We counted the weeks the film actually spent in each country's Netflix Top 10: 93 countries, Latvia 62, Mexico 51, the United States 49, South Korea 32.

577 Korean films have reached a Netflix Top 10 somewhere since July 2021. The median one charted in a single country for three weeks. Korean series do five countries and six weeks. One film managed all 93 at once.

51 comics that Korean studios adapted, measured beside the adaptations. Korean webtoon sources were out-read in 16 of 18 cases, median gap 14x. Foreign sources — mostly Japanese manga — 3.7x, and won a third of the time.

I Am Solo is heading to Netflix in over 190 countries. Netflix publishes weekly top tens for 94. Of 974 Korean titles that ever charted anywhere, the median reached 2 countries and 447 reached exactly one.

Christian metal band Demon Hunter has sued Netflix over the name KPop Demon Hunters. Of 974 Korean titles on the Netflix charts, 423 already carry an English name that belongs to a work from somewhere else too.

People search the phrase for individual Korean films and shows. The Netflix files cannot answer it — but they can say where a title stands among 546. Reaching No.1 in some country turns out to be the common case, not the rare one.

93 countries took KPop Demon Hunters into a Netflix top 10, number one in 76 of them. A trade headline says DreamWorks is answering with Forgotten Island. We counted what is being answered — Korea sat exactly at the median.

Netflix publishes two Top 10 data files. We counted what is in them so you do not have to download 30MB to find out: every column, the weeks and countries covered, and which columns are empty and how often.

The scattered cases are the famous ones. Of 7,730 Korean chart lives lasting two weeks or more, 6,725 are present every single week from first to last. The median is three weeks, spanning three weeks, unbroken.

It sat on some country's Netflix Top 10 for 62 straight weeks. Counted country by country, four of 93 passed 52 weeks and only Latvia held every week without dropping out. Korea ran 32 weeks, the median of all 93.

It is the longest any Korean title has spent in one country's Netflix top 10. The 72 weeks are spread across 96 weeks of calendar, and the longest unbroken run inside them is 53. Squid Game's 43 weeks in India span 201.

Of every Korean title either country had on a Netflix top 10 in the same week, 77.9% was on both lists. The 15 most alike pairs on the board are all in Southeast or East Asia — and nowhere resembles Korea's own chart.

Britain manages 33%. Ranking 92 markets by how often they carry a Korean title in the same week it first charts anywhere puts eight Asian markets at the top — and the median lag, the obvious measure, cannot see any of it.

Every chart row carries a weeks-in-top-10 number. Across 500,340 rows it adds exactly one on every consecutive week — and after a gap it keeps counting 98% of the time. It is a cumulative tally, and reading it as a streak overstates runs.

Korean titles have held nine or ten of a chart's ten places 51 times. Outside Korea every one is in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia or Singapore. Taiwan, fourth by Korean share, has never done it.

Two Korean dramas were reported this week as topping Netflix's non-English chart. Counted country by country, Agent Kim Reactivated reached number one in 25 of the 81 countries that carried it, and never appeared on a US or UK chart.

Across 93 Netflix markets, the countries that see the most Korean titles also keep each one on the chart longest. The two move together, correlation 0.72. Vietnam gives a Korean title three times the shelf life Britain does.

Of the ten most watched Korean titles on Netflix's global chart, nine reached number one. Alchemy of Souls charted longer than eight of them — 27 weeks — and peaked at three. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha lasted 16 weeks and peaked at two.

On 29 August the English Wikipedia article for the Korean series Mousetrap was opened 23,512 times — rank 157 in the world that day. Squid Game's best day in the same month was 5,205. Two days earlier Mousetrap drew 658.

In August, Korean Wikipedia opened the article on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey 119,356 times. Every Korean film released in 2026 that has a Korean Wikipedia article, added together, drew 19,822. That is six to one, at home.

94 countries have given a Korean title Netflix's number one place. The median country has done it for two titles, ever. Only eight have had five or more, and all eight are in Asia.

Netflix publishes one ranking of Korean shows: hours viewed. Count countries instead and 11 of the top 15 move at least three places. Extraordinary Attorney Woo goes from 2nd to 49th.

We counted every country-week of the Netflix top 10 in which a Korean title appeared — 16,408 of them — and asked which other Korean titles were on that same list. Only six titles went their whole run without ever meeting another.

Vietnam twice in August 2021, then Indonesia and Malaysia in the same week of July 2022. We checked all 20,581 country-weeks in which any Korean title charted; these four are the only ones outside Korea where nothing else got in.

In the five years of country top 10s Netflix has published, 93 countries have put a Korean title in a weekly top 10. All 93 did so within the first twelve weeks of the record. Six of the last eight doors were opened by Squid Game.

Eight months without the top place leaving Korean television, and it changed hands thirteen times inside that run. Malaysia and Singapore then did seventeen weeks each, starting and ending on exactly the same dates.

976 Korean titles have reached a weekly top 10 somewhere. 438 did it in exactly one country, and for 274 of those the country was South Korea itself. Films stay home far more than series — 37% against 15%.

Across 25 Korean titles with an article on all four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, the Indonesian edition was first or joint-first 24 times and last not once. The Vietnamese edition is larger on every measure we checked.

288 Korean titles charted somewhere in 2022 and 215 in 2025, while the places they held rose 9.7%. Remove each year's biggest title and the ten largest gained 3.1 points — much of the concentration is one show returning.

Across 210,355 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 3.7 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 0.403. Non-Korean arrivals cost 0.013. 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 8,324 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: 77, 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 nine of the ten Asian markets we track, a mean of 8.56 points, and rose in 69 of the other 83. Japan went from 32.8% to 11.9%. The one Asian market that rose is Korea's own.

Among 170 Korean titles that reached 20 countries or more, the first week already holds a median 40% of the countries they ever reach. But 58 of them started under 25% and 38 were nearly everywhere at once.

Across 93 Netflix markets Korean titles hold 7.9% of chart places. In the 20 markets where their share runs 5–10%, they hold only 5.4% of number-one places. In the ten where they are strongest it inverts: 36.6% at number one against 27.4%.

Korean titles hold 7.9% of Netflix country chart places. Spread evenly that would put at least one on 55.9% of country-weeks; the real figure is 41.3%. Empty weeks run 58.7% against 44.1%, and crowded weeks 4.6% against 0.5%.

Of 135,036 times a Korean series reached two countries charts, 58.1% arrived in both the same week. Where one did come first, only 1 of 8,333 country triples contradict each other — the markets form one stable order.

The leverage argument runs through cost — $360,000 an episode in 2015 against far more now. We tested what it predicts on the charts. It did not appear.

Of 924 gaps of four weeks or more that end with a Korean title back on a country chart, 43.6% carry a different season label — not a return at all. Of the 315 genuine returns, 94.3% happen with no other season nearby.

Netflix attaches hours viewed to 10,720 global chart rows and to 0 of its 499,180 country rows. Knowing a rank narrows the possible hours by 47.3% on the non-English series chart — least of the four, and the one Korean titles sit on.

They are a different kind of title: 2.20 markets on average against 4.63, 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. One show has held seven of the ten. Seasons explain some of it.

We tagged every changed figure with the kind of mistake that produced it. One kind accounts for nine of the thirty-six. Four kinds still have no test, and this piece names them rather than reporting the coverage.

Of 718 actors with two or more charting Korean titles, 62.4% have worked in both film and series. If format meant nothing, the figure would be 73.8%. The gap is the size of the wall, and it is smaller than reputation suggests.

Of the 421 Korean titles that reached Southeast Asia's top 10, Korea's own chart got there first for 51 and in the same week for 166 — and never charted 150 of them at all. Series enter together; films scatter.

Across 93 markets, 57.1% 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.

Measured on all 246 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 1.3× among titles that lasted six to ten weeks.

We asked Wikidata which country made each of our 421 chart titles. Films come back ambiguous 54.1% of the time, series 22.5%. Short names are why.

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.

Four countries, one identical decline: new group debuts look 69% down since 2017 in Korea, and just as far down in Japan, America and Britain. What we had measured was not the industry but how fast Wikidata records a new group.

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.

The Korean share moves 2.1 points across twelve months — and 14.3 in a week. Month by month it sits between 6.5% and 8.6% of the world's top-10 places. Remove each month's biggest title and the band gets wider, not narrower.

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.

Wikidata records no cast at all for 266 of 901 Korean titles. Of the 635 that have any, the median series lists five names. What that limits.

Our panel never had a denominator. Wikidata records 785 Korean series and 1,126 Korean films from the chart era; 249 series and 172 films reached a Top 10. Series are twice as likely to be seen at all.

215 of 421 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.

In 2012 the two were the same size to within half a percent, and broadcast was ahead again as recently as 2022. Both series, year by year.

Of 666 Korean titles with a recorded cast, 649 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 94.5% 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.

232 of the 1,550 individuals in our K-pop panel also appear in Korean titles that reached a Netflix Top 10. They are 15% of the names and 41% 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 312 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 89%, and it separates prestige work from reality and youth casting.

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 across 236 titles. One of them is a fifth of it. Every title listed.