From Endless Love, Lovers in Paris, and Jewel in the Palace to recent hits like Goblin, The World of the Married, and The Penthouse–Korean Dramas seem to have not lost their grip on Filipino audiences.
Filipino audiences first hop on to the Asianovela craze in the early 2000s, when ABS-CBN aired the wildly popular Taiwanese hit, Meteor Garden, and the rest is history.
As Chinese-language dramas made their conquest in Philippine television, so did their Japanese and Korean counterparts. The latter, however, would soon prove its timelessness as many recent titles still find similar successes among Filipino viewers.
The first Korean drama to be aired by a Philippine TV network was Successful Story of A Bright Girl. GMA Network aired the South Korean series in 2003, although it didn’t generate much success like the network’s succeeding offerings. Among those titles included were the first two Endless Love series: Autumn in My Heart and the Winter Sonata—regarded as the advent of the K-Drama invasion in the Philippines.
ABS-CBN, which overwhelmingly benefited from the massive viewership of the original Meteor Garden, joined the K-Drama mania a year later.
Among the Network’s early top-raters included the Choi Ji-Woo-starrer–The Truth, and the mammoth Asian hit, Lovers in Paris. The latter was adapted by ABS-CBN for Filipino audiences in 2009, with Piolo Pascual, KC Concepcion, and Zanjoe Marudo in starring roles.
As Korean entertainment gained dominance in local media, Korean actors and Korean music became trends. Anyone who made sure they won’t miss GMA Network’s airing of Full House, or ABS-CBN’s airing of A Love to Kill, surely remembers Korean superstar Rain’s visit to the Philippines in 2010. And like F4 songs, Korean drama soundtracks also made it to Philippine radio stations.
It would almost take a decade since the advent of the Korean drama invasion for the K-Pop mania to explode in the Philippines.
Due to various Korean dramas that ABS-CBN and GMA Network have aired, a seemingly relentless stream of new titles ensued. It also brought them sensational victories in TV ratings.
ABS-CBN aired some of South Korea’s highest-rated dramas like Memories of Bali, Green Rose, Only You, Forbidden Love, My Girl, and City Hunter, among many others.
Some of the most-watched Korean dramas included–Stairway to Heaven, Jumong, Queen Seondok, Coffee Prince, and Secret Garden have given GMA Network their hits, too.
These series aired [mostly] in Korea from the late 2000s to the early 2010s.
TV5 didn’t have similar luck with the series they aired, but they did air a dozen or two titles from the late 2000s to mid-2010s. Their most recent acquisitions included Reply 1988 and The Beauty Inside, both achieved a widespread following in Asia.
Following its departure from free television, ABS-CBN didn’t stop securing its place as the ‘First and True Home of Asianovelas’.
It aired the massive hit, The World of the Married in 2020, and the Korean adaptation of the American legal-drama Suits early this year. Before its shutdown, the Network had success with I Have A Lover, Encounter, and Hotel del Luna.
GMA Network similarly affirmed its dominance with its recent hits, including Sky Castle, The Penthouse, and Are You Human?
The persistent grip of Korean dramas continued due to its non-stop airing of popular titles by leading Philippine TV networks.
They remain wildly popular amid the emergence of new manias like boys’ love, Lakorn, and even Turkish and Indian dramas–it remains a fascinating mystery.
The Korea Research Center in UP Diliman has some interesting answers, but they seem to be not applicable to every new trend within the Philippine entertainment scene.
Erik Paolo Capistrano told ABS-CBN News that the success of K-drama resulted from the combination of the ingenuity of Korean entertainment companies and the aggressiveness of loyal fanbases. Heavy promotion from both groups is also seen as a major factor.
Capistrano noted that K-Dramas almost always offer refreshing takes on common themes and that their creators are always open to various modes of content delivery for their dramas.
It could be the reason for the rise of streaming platforms, and most are banking on the continued explosion of K-Culture across various platforms.
Netflix, for example, started to produce and co-produce original Korean dramas, like Kingdom. Viu, WeTV, and other similar services offer popular Korean TV dramas as VOD content for global audiences.
ABS-CBN similarly offers its own produced shows and movies–as well as Tagalized versions of popular Asian dramas through its streaming service, iWantTFC.
It’s hard to say whether Korean dramas will meet the same fate suffered by Latinovelas, whose popularity among Filipino audiences faded in the early 2000s.
What is certain, however, is that it definitely won’t happen sooner or later.
That’s judging the ever-evolving creativity of the Korean producers in adapting to the ever-changing entertainment landscapes and viewing habits across the world. It makes us think since we’ve practically followed the K-Pop model in allowing P-Pop to thrive, and maybe follow how K-Dramas operate, too.
