Korean pop culture, in numbers

When a Korean title is at its widest — the week the push has already worked

A title that travels is on several country charts at once, and that number rises and then falls. The week it is highest is the week the title is at its widest. When does that happen — and is there anything left to push after it?

Widest in week one — Korean series 20.1% · every other series 44.7%.

Four groups, measured the same way

TitlesMedian peak weekWidest in week 1Widest by week 4
Korean series209220.1%80.4%
Every other series1,990244.7%92%
Korean films109229.4%82.6%
Every other film3,231236.5%78.6%

Width is how many countries held the title in the same week. The peak week is counted from the title's first chart week anywhere, so week 1 is the week it first appears. Only titles that reached at least 5 countries in total are measured. Below that the question does not exist: a title in one or two markets is at its widest almost by default.

A title still on a chart in the last week we hold could still get wider, so its peak week is not yet known. Those are removed and counted separately. That is 129 titles, alongside 7,614 that reached fewer than 5 countries.

Most of that gap is length, and here is the proof

Korean series last longer than other series. A longer run has more later weeks in it, so peaking late is partly just having a late to peak in. The same measurement inside bands of equal run length:

Weeks on a chartKorean seriesEvery other series
1–2 weeks50% (6)83.5% (461)
3–4 weeks38.1% (21)46.2% (504)
5–8 weeks26.6% (79)28.6% (567)
9 weeks or more9.7% (103)24% (458)

In the middle it nearly disappears. Among titles that lasted five to eight weeks the two groups are within a couple of points of each other. Most of the headline gap is that Korean series are concentrated in the long bands, where everybody peaks late.

But it does not close everywhere. Among titles lasting nine weeks or more, Korean series peak in week one 9.7% of the time against 24%.

⚠ The top band is 6 Korean titles. It is printed because leaving a row out of a table is its own kind of claim, but nothing should be read from it.

What this is worth knowing for

80.4% of Korean series have reached their widest point by week four. That is the window. Inside it the median is week 2, not week one — so a push timed to the first Monday is timed to a week that, four times in five, is not the widest.

After week four there is very little left: the remainder is spread from week five to week 34.

How this was counted, and what it cannot say

Width is a count of charts, not of people. A title can be in more countries and be watched less, and a title one place outside a top 10 is invisible here. This also cannot say what made a title widen — a marketing push, a holiday and a dubbing release all look the same in a rank table.

This is a distribution, not a rule. Some Korean series are widest in week one and some in week 34. The table says how often, not what will happen to any one title.

What an opening position buys · How long a title holds a chart · Does it arrive in one country or many · How we count

What we wrote from this data