KBS tightens grip with ‘Descendants of the Sun,’ ‘Signal’ hogs cable viewership

KBS continued its ratings lead over terrestrial networks with its drama "Descendants of the Sun" last week, with tvN's "Signal" capturing the top cable viewership as it held its season finale, data showed Monday.

Starring actor Song Joong-ki and actress Song Hye-kyo, "Descendants of the Sun" fetched 28.0 percent of viewers between last Monday and Sunday, data by Nielsen Korea showed.

In Seoul, it claimed 31.2 percent on Thursday, the first time the show has entered the 30 percent range.

"Descendants of the Sun" tells a love story between an Army captain and a doctor who travel to the fictitious war-torn country of Uruk to save lives.

With "My Love from the Star," the benchmark for recent drama success in Korea, taking 17 episodes to reach that level, the KBS 2TV series dethroned the SBS epic to become the most popular drama of recent years.

Meanwhile, "Please Come Back, Mister," an SBS show aired in the same Wednesday-Thursday night time slot, fell way behind the KBS front-runner with 5.4 percent.

On the cable side, the tvN crime series "Signal" took 11.75 percent of viewers in a tour de force for a non-romantic cable production.

In "Signal," a criminal profiler communicates with a detective, who lives in the past, via mystical walkie-talkies to solve cold cases. It wrapped up Saturday with a viewership high of 13.4 percent, the first time a criminal thriller on a cable channel finished with a double-digit viewing rate.

Among daily dramas, KBS once again led the board with "Sweet Home, Sweet Honey," which captured 27.1 percent of viewers.

MBC's "Beautiful You," in the same Monday-Friday night time slot, finished with less than half that viewership with 12.5 percent.

Among weekend dramas, KBS 2TV's "Five Children" continued to outperform its rivals with a 25.2 percent viewership. MBC's "Happy Home" was a distant second with 13.6 percent. (Yonhap)