What drama rating mean?

I've been watching korean dramas for awhile now, and I hear a lot about ratings, but I'm not really sure what they mean or how they work...Could some please explain to me...

For example Iljimae recently broke through 20%...What does that mean? What is it comparing to? Is 20% a good thing?

Also could someone refer me to some site where I could check the rating for korean dramas. Thank you very much.

Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:48 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Well, a rating of 20% means that , at a given time/time period, 20% of all viewers in a representative "marketing supervised viewer group" had switched on a particular program. The viewing pattern is recorded by a device, where each family member has to key in their "presence" and which also records what station is watched.

It doesn't say how many people really watched the show... Like, when you have 100 viewers total, 20% would be 20 people... while, if you have 100.000 viewers total, 20% would be 20.000... But wether those 20.000 people were all watching tensely, or doing the laundry, reading a book or fell asleep, you can't say.

Also, the marketing people split up the ratings according to age groups, gender, etc., so that the stations know if the show reaches the target group, which will mean that the sponsors for, sy, kid toys, will buy more air time for commercials if a show targeted at kids actually have kids and their parents watching, while a company for geriatric products might not buy air time for their commercial. They would go for a program aimed at older viewers, i.e. if the show gets high ratings from the target group.

I'm not so sure about how it is in Korea, because a lot of it depends on how many stations viewers can chose from, but from my general experience, a rating of 20% is a decent rating in any book.

As for ratings, check out the wikidrama page for the show in question. Ratings are usually noted at the bottom of the page.
Example: http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Iljimae

Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:25 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

where can i find a list of highly rated dramas on wiki?