Finally, the highly anticipated Perfect Crown will air its first episode. All eyes are on whether IU and Byeon Woo-seok, the two leads, can succeed in avenging MBC, which struggled with ratings last year.
Tonight (10) at 9:40 p.m., MBC's new Friday-Saturday drama Perfect Crown will premiere. Perfect Crown is a drama set in a 21st-century constitutional monarchy Korea about a chaebol who has everything but is merely a commoner, an exasperating woman, and the king's son who can have nothing, a man's fate to pioneer and break class barriers in a romance. Singer and actor IU plays the titular role Seong Hee-joo, a chaebol who is a commoner, and actor Byeon Woo-seok, who rose to prominence with Lovely Runner, plays Prince Ian, Yi Wan, the king's son who can have nothing, as the male lead.
Just the meeting of IU and Byeon Woo-seok, two top-tier actors, had drama fans on edge from the casting stage for Perfect Crown. IU has established herself as a public pick you can trust to watch and listen to, whether as a singer or an actor. Byeon Woo-seok rose to stardom through the 2024 tvN drama Lovely Runner, which caused a sensation. Their meeting made Perfect Crown the industry's most anticipated drama.
For broadcaster MBC, Perfect Crown is also a work at an important crossroads. Last year MBC suffered setbacks in drama ratings. Among Friday-Saturday dramas, which can be considered the main primetime slot, none exceeded 10% in ratings last year. The highest rating was Undercover High School, which aired from February to March last year. Even that only reached 8.3% (Nielsen Korea nationwide households).
The drama The Judge Returns, which aired earlier this year, rose as high as 13.6%, seemingly washing that away. But its successor, In Your Radiant Season, sank again to an average in the 3% range, even dropping as low as 2.3% at one point. It remains to be seen whether Perfect Crown, which took over the baton, can again hit double-digit ratings and possibly record a blockbuster rating of 15% or more—the first since Knight Flower in 2024—an outcome drawing close attention.
As proof of the anticipation, Perfect Crown ranked first in TV and OTT drama buzz rankings released by Good Data Corporation even before it aired. It is unusual for a drama that has not yet aired to top that ranking. That underlines the intense public interest not only in Perfect Crown but in its leads IU and Byeon Woo-seok. Even the broadcast advertising has been entirely pre-sold. An MBC official told OSEN that, under strong interest from advertisers, the advertising inventory for Perfect Crown this month has already been sold out early.
Nevertheless, there are hurdles. Beyond competing shows in the same time slot, the limitation lies in the work itself. Perfect Crown consists of only 12 episodes. As it is a pre-produced work, emergency extensions for additional shooting are impossible. In reality, achieving high ratings of 10% or 20% requires a longer period to attract viewers. But Perfect Crown must produce explosive interest and convert it into ratings within just 12 episodes. Even The Judge Returns had 14 episodes and set its peak rating at episode 13. Considering that, 12 episodes may be long enough for OTT immersion but somewhat short to secure stable ratings.
The recent weakness of the romantic comedy genre among terrestrial dramas also draws attention. In the terrestrial viewer structure, where middle-aged and older viewers centered on active seniors predominate, preferred drama genres have been modern hero stories featuring private revenge and moral justice rather than romantic comedies. SBS actively exploited this with the Taxi Driver series, repeatedly presenting similar content and capturing middle-aged and older viewers. MBC's The Judge Returns, based on the webtoon of the same name, was praised for its moral-justice storyline featuring the hero protagonist Lee Han-young, a judge who returns. That element is hard to find in Perfect Crown.
Can Perfect Crown overcome these limits and turn anticipation into certainty? The buzz has already been abundantly proven. Interest from female viewers aged 10 to 30 is expected to continue barring surprises. The key is whether traditional indicators such as ratings will live up to expectations. Although various metrics such as 2049 ratings and metropolitan area ratings are becoming target indicators, the undisputed ultimate success metric without anomalies remains nationwide household ratings. All eyes are on whether Perfect Crown, led by IU and Byeon Woo-seok, can dominate even traditional values and truly become a blockbuster.
[Photo] Provided by MBC.
[OSEN]