On April 18, 2024, the South Korean media outlet Sports Chosun reported that the romance and comedy series Queen of Tears surpassed one billion views, creating a new record, as it became the first K-drama to achieve the milestone in tvN's history.
According to the data provided by Nielsen Korea on April 19, 2024, the slice-of-life drama recorded a cumulative one billion video views, as per the data gathered from the paid platforms (Netflix, TVING) incorporating cable, IPTV, and satellite. It has also recorded the highest number of weekly video views in tvN's history, exceeding 188 million views within only one week from April 8 and April 15, 2024.
Queen of Tears impressed K-drama community with compelling storyline and versatile actors
Queen of Tears continued to create new milestones every week since its release on March 9, 2024. According to Nielsen Korea, the drama started with impressive viewership ratings of 5.853% nationwide and 6.495% in Seoul households for the episode. Subsequently, it hit two-digit ratings for the fourth episode aired on March 17, 2024, recording 12.985% viewership ratings nationwide and 13.857% in Seoul households, respectively.
Queen of Tears has broken its own highest viewership ratings for six consecutive weeks, and in the sixth week, it recorded the highest figure. The drama recorded 20.732% viewership ratings nationwide and 23.242% among households in Seoul for episode 12, which aired on April 14, 2024.
As Queen of Tears emerged as the highest rated tvN drama of all the timeslots in Seoul metropolitan households area with 23.072% ratings, it dethroned Crash Landing on You's record of 22.677%. This was confirmed by the South Korean nationwide pay television network via their social media handle on Twitter (now called X) on April 15, 2024. The top three dramas in metropolitan Seoul household areas of tvN include Queen of Tears, Crash Landing on You, and Goblin.
Regarding the nationwide viewership ratings, the drama ranked at second position in tvN's all-time viewership ratings after Crash Landing on You, as episode 12 aired on April 14, 2024, recording an average of 20.7%. However, Crash Landing on You remained first in the nationwide timeslot, having 21.683 %.
Meanwhile, the top dramas on tvN, Queen of Tears and Crash Landing on You, have been penned by the same screenwriter, Park Ji-eun. The screenwriter has once again amused the K-drama community worldwide with her excellent storytelling and compelling them to wait for weekends so that people can binge-watch the new episodes.
Meanwhile, on April 3, 2024, the drama accumulated another milestone after Netflix announced through its website that the drama topped the Global Top 10 for non-English shows. The limited series garnered over 4.3 million views and ranked in the top 10 in over 41 countries. It had cumulative views of over 4,300,000 for the week of March 25 and March 31, and topped the rankings in the fourth week since the series began.
The credit for the Queen of Tears's success has been provided to the compelling storyline, versatile actors, unique storytelling, and tvN's marketing strategies, public relations, publicity, programming, design, and more.
The broadcasting channel produces a large number of dramas every year and effectively channelizes social media platforms to promote their shows, which ends up becoming popular internationally and provides tough competition to the other cable channels, including JTBC, SBS, MBC, and others.
Queen of Tears: plot, characters, and more
Queen of Tears delves into the love story of Baek Hyun-woo and Hong Hae-in, who go through a series of crises that force the former to divorce his wife. While Baek Hyun-woo hails from the remote village of Yongduri and is the legal director of the conglomerate Queens group, Hong Hae-in is the chaebol heiress of Queens Group's department store.
The duo gets married after working together at the Queens. However, after three years of marriage, they face several difficulties and become distant. The drama will showcase how they would survive the challenging circumstances and find their way back to each other.
Kim Soo-hyun plays the character of Baek Hyun-woo while Kim Ji-won plays the role of Hong Hae-in in the drama. The other cast includes Park Sung-hoon, Kwak Dong-yeon, and Lee Joo-bin, who chronicle the roles of Yoon Eun-seong, Hong Soo-cheol, and Cheon Da-hye, respectively. It is helmed by directors, including Kim Hee-won and Jang Young-woo.
Queen of Tears streams every Saturday and Sunday. It is available to stream on Netflix globally. The upcoming episodes 13 and 14 are scheduled to air on April 20 and April 21, 2024, respectively.