Korea continues to lead Asia’s ability to penetrate international entertainment markets. But this is cold comfort for mainstream Korean drama producers, most of whom have seen commissions, revenues and optimism nosedive in 2025. 

A combo of streaming shifts, continued erosion of the domestic broadcast environment, and high (many say unviable and definitely unsustainable) production costs have decimated previous euphoria. 

Dismal earnings reports proved what everyone was talking about anyway, and shot holes in headlines that promoted Korean storytelling as unstoppable. Which it may well be, but it sure doesn’t feel like it right now. 

In August this year, for instance, Korean giant Studio Dragon said it was “humbled” by its latest results. Studio Dragon humbled? That has to be a first. The eye-popping admission was followed by filings that showed a 95.8% drop in operating profits for the first half of 2025. Net profit of KRW28.3 billion/US$20.3 million in the first half of 2024 fell to a loss of (KRW1.4 billion/US$1 million) in the same six months this year. 

And then there’s public broadcaster KBS, which is not wholly out of the muck it has been buried in for two years or more. The behemoth enters 2026 once again being able to benefit from licence fees collection integrated with household utility bills. For 2026, KBS has said it will present its first balanced budget in years. As part of its relief at having persuaded the powers that be to reverse the collections issue, KBS looks like it’s going to go full tilt on original content that hyperserves every Korean.  

MBC’s financials are also a sorry story. The latest figures available are for 2024, when the publicly funded broadcast platform reported a net profit of KRW 21.5 billion from KRW96.6 billion in 2023. 

One of Korea’s bigger questions for 2026 is whether the union between entertainment giant CJ ENM’s TVING and Wavve (the KBS, MBC, SBS, telco SKT JV) will succeed in creating a domestic challenger to Netflix. Conditional approval for the merger has already been given and will be final if the two platforms can prove in 2026 that they aren’t going to fleece consumers. Even so, unless something dramatic happens, David’s chances against Goliath aren’t looking that good.

Netflix has a 60%+ mobile streaming market share. Together, the two Korean platforms have a mobile streaming share of about 25% and about 11 million subscribers (source: Mobile Index data). 

The wild-ish card for 2026 is TVING’s deal with Warner Bros Discovery (which has a whole set of separate considerations that will dramatically change its future). On the surface, TVING gets a branded destination on HBO Max in Southeast Asia – a big-love K-drama market – from early 2026. 

Right now, Netflix is the sole streaming platform confident enough to release engagement data. We’re working on the assumption that if any other platform beat Netflix, the jubilation would spread far and wide, and there would, surely, be some public announcement. But it hasn’t and they haven’t, so… 

Across Southeast Asia, if audiences are not watching domestic titles, they’re fully into Netflix’s Korean series. 

Just how well does Korean drama perform in international markets? 

Global TV series viewing in the first half of this year belonged squarely to Netflix and, more specifically, to Squid Game, according to Netflix data. Season 2 was the #2 title in the world (840.3 million hours viewed/117.3 million views) behind Adolescence (144.8 million views), followed by Squid Game season 3 in third place (438.6 million hours viewed/71.5 million views). Season 3 released on 27 June – three days before the six-monthly rankings closed. In all, Asia had 13 of the top 100 Netflix titles for the first half. With the exception of Hindi romcom The Royals and Japanese anime series Sakamoto Days, all were from Korea.  

Anything else a source of optimism? 

K-pop Demon Hunters. The U.S. movie is Netflix’s top film of all time. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.  

Korea in numbers
Population ........................... 51.685 million    
Total households ................. 21.821 million
TV households ................................ 91.9%
Total pay TV subscribers ......... 36.3 million
Internet subscribers ................. 50.4 million
Mobile subscribers .................. 69.2 million

Source: Statistics Korea/KOSIS (projected population in 2025, households in 2024), Korea Communications Comission (TV households/pay TV subs in 2024), DataReportal (internet subscribers in 2025; mobile subscribers in 2025)

Published in ContentAsia's The Big List Korea / October 2025 edition