#squid-game

Sun Oct 04 — Across 93 countries and 268 weeks, Korean titles took 30.2 per cent of Vietnam's Netflix top 10 slots and 1.6 per cent of America's. Where the share is small, one show is nearly all of it.

Sun Sep 13 — Across 12 Korean titles whose English Wikipedia pages spiked, the bigger the show's own peak, the smaller its lead actor's share of that peak — a correlation of -0.68 on a hand-picked dozen, not a random sample.

Thu Sep 03 — 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.

Tue Sep 01 — 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.

Tue Sep 01 — 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.

Tue Sep 01 — We measured twelve Korean breakouts on English Wikipedia: the title's biggest day, and that day for its most-read cast member. The bigger the title, the smaller the share reaching any one actor. r = -0.68, n = 12, p = 0.016.

Tue Sep 01 — 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.

Tue Sep 01 — We took the cast of thirteen Korean titles that broke out on English Wikipedia — 119 actors with their own article. Sixteen of them appear in two of those titles. Nobody appears in three.

Tue Sep 01 — Thirteen of Squid Game's cast have a second Korean title that charted. For five of them it reached five countries or fewer — Jung Ho-yeon's reached one. For seven it reached fifty or more. The same show did both.

Tue Sep 01 — 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.

Mon Aug 31 — 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.

Sun Aug 30 — 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.

Sat Aug 15 — Twenty-six Korean titles could be timed from their peak across four Southeast Asian Wikipedias. The median fell below half in two months, nine of them in a single month, and nineteen later rose above half again.

Sat Aug 15 — Of 59 Korean titles fetched across four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, nine could be measured before and after their peak. Twenty-two were disqualified because their article did not exist before the title arrived.

Sat Aug 08 — 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.

Sat Aug 08 — 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.

Fri Aug 07 — Korean titles drew between 74 and 79 million hours a week from Netflix's global chart in every year we hold. Exports rose 63% in the same two years.

Fri Aug 07 — One Netflix title is 21.3% of all Korean viewing. The most looked-up Korean actor is 3.1% of all attention. And within the fifty most-searched, appearing in more charting titles does not predict being looked up more.

Thu Aug 06 — 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.