Michelle Topham 
South Korean drama Captivating the King, Episode 5 aired last night to a big drop in its nationwide ratings. (Seoul ratings are, unfortunately, not available due to yet another Nielsen Korea server outage).
That nationwide ratings drop was a big one for the tvN drama — from Episode 4’s all-time high of 6.01 percent of the audience share down to Episode 5’s 3.86 percent.
Captivating the King had a good reason for its ratings drop
That being said, Captivating the King was up against televised football games in the AFC Asian Cup on Saturday night.
One game between Iran and Japan (Iran won) and a second between Qatar and Uzbekistan (Qatar won), so it is not surprising the K-drama lost a substantial number of viewers, causing the Captivating the King, Episode 5 ratings to plummet because of it.
After all, with South Korea now in the semi-finals (match on February 6th against Jordan), and Koreans wanting to see what their home team’s possible opponents can do if they make it to the final on February 10th, it is no wonder several dramas lost viewers last night.
Captivating the King on Netflix
The big test for Captivating the King, however, is how well the Korean period drama is doing on Netflix where it is currently streaming for international audiences.
As the K-drama made it onto the Netflix Top 10 Most-Watched Non-English TV Shows chart last week (at #7), fans are now dying to see if it can repeat that performance, or even better it, this week.
Captivating the King stars Jo Jung Suk, Shin Se Kyung, and Lee Shin Young in the lead roles, with the superb supporting cast of Park Ye Young, Jo Sung Ha, Choi Dae Hoon, Jang Young Nam, Yang Kyung Won, Lee Kyu Hoe, Kang Hong Suk, Han Dong Hee and Na Hyun Woo.
The next episode of Captivating the King will air later on tonight on tvN in South Korea, with the episode also showing up on Netflix around the same time.
Tune in to either platform if you haven’t already, as this really is one of the best K-dramas of 2024 so far.
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