JTBC entertainment show "Please Take Care of My Refrigerator" (hereafter Naengbuhae), which President Lee Jae-myung and the first lady appeared on as a Chuseok holiday special, recorded an all-time high viewership rating reaching 9%.
According to ratings agency Nielsen Korea on the 7th, the main broadcast of JTBC's "Naengbuhae" that aired the previous day posted a nationwide rating of 8.9%.
This is the highest rating across seasons 1 and 2 of "Naengbuhae," which began airing in 2014. The previous top record was 7.4% for an episode in Aug. 2015 featuring singers G-Dragon and Taeyang.
The episode drew attention as the president and first lady's first entertainment appearance since taking office. President Lee and his wife, Kim Hea-kyung, said they decided to appear on the show to promote K-food, and instead of revealing their refrigerator, they introduced Korea's in-season ingredients such as Korean beef (hanwoo), dried radish greens (siraegi), lance asparagus (deodeok), and radish.
The president said, "Culture such as K-pop or drama is important, but the core of real culture is food," adding, "In exporting Korean culture, food becomes a great force that also grows the Republic of Korea industrially."
On the show, the president tasted a milk porridge made with pine nuts from chef Son Jong-won's four traditional snacks, "Aja Ajat," and praised it, saying, "It's the best I've had."
After tasting "Lee Jae-myung pizza," a dish made by webtoon artist Kim Poong using dried radish greens, he was surprised, saying, "The cooking was playful, but the taste is no joke."
Meanwhile, ahead of the broadcast, political circles saw a clash. The opposition noted that the public suffered inconveniences due to the National Information Resources Service fire, and that on the 3rd a Ministry of the Interior and Safety official who oversaw the team in charge of the national computer network outage died, arguing that the presidential couple's entertainment appearance was inappropriate.
In response, the presidential office, considering it a time of mourning, asked JTBC to delay the airing, and JTBC changed the schedule of the Chuseok special segment, initially set to air on the night of the 5th, to 10 p.m. on the 6th.
The broadcast that ranked No. 1 in ratings on Chuseok day was KBS's live recording of the "king of singers" Cho Yong-pil's solo concert. "80th Anniversary of Liberation: Make This Moment Forever Cho Yong-pil," which aired on the 6th, recorded a nationwide rating of 15.7% for the main broadcast. It was the No. 1 overall rating across terrestrial, general programming, and cable on Chuseok day.
Earlier, Cho Yong-pil held a solo concert for this special at Gocheok Sky Dome on Sept. 6. It is the first time in 28 years that his solo performance has aired on KBS since the 1997 "Big Show."
That day, before an audience of about 18,000, he belted out 28 songs over two and a half hours, including "Short Hair," "Mona Lisa," "Back to Busan Port," "Dream," and "Bounce."
KBS scheduled the performance as a three-part special consisting of a prequel, the main broadcast, and a behind-the-scenes documentary. The final installment of the trilogy, "Cho Yong-pil, Make This Moment Forever — The Record of That Day," is set to air at 7:20 p.m. on the 8th.
Earlier, on the 4th, SBS's "Lim Young-woong Recital" also posted a high nationwide rating of 6.2%.
It is a live recording of Lim Young-woong's concert held over six days at Seoul's Gocheok Sky Dome on Dec. 27–29 last year and Jan. 2–4 this year, and it is the first time it has been shown on TV.
At the concert that day, Lim Young-woong not only sang his own songs but also reinterpreted other singers' classics with his unique voice, presenting a variety of stages that bridged generations.