Highest Rated K-Drama 2026: Ratings, Records, What's a Hit

Read any Korean entertainment news and you’ll see the numbers everywhere: “a new personal best of 9.5%”, “ratings break 20%”. If you watch K-dramas on Netflix from abroad, it’s hard to tell whether those numbers are good or bad.

So here are the numbers, as of October 2026: the most-watched drama of the year, how far it sits from the old records, what percentage counts as a hit on each channel, and who measures 시청률 (sicheongnyul, TV ratings) in the first place.

What is the highest rated K-drama of 2026?

It’s SBS’s Friday–Saturday drama Agent Kim Reactivated (김부장, Gim Bujang). Episode 8, aired July 18, drew 23.1% of households nationwide according to Nielsen Korea, the highest of any drama broadcast this year. In Seoul it reached 23.6%. Nothing else comes close: KBS2’s weekend drama Hwaryeohan Naldeul (화려한 날들), which began in 2025 and ended in January, peaked at 20.5% on its finale, and Doctor X, still on air, sits at 19.5%.

Eight of the ten are on the free-to-air networks. The best cable and general-programming channel performers were JTBC’s Reborn Rookie (신입사원 강회장), which ended on 13.6%, and tvN’s Undercover Miss Hong, which peaked at 12.4% on its 16th and final episode. Those two are measured against pay-TV households, so the base is slightly different from the network shows.

Three things to keep in mind about this list:

• Hwaryeohan Naldeul started in 2025. Count only dramas that began in 2026 and Doctor X moves up to second.
• Doctor X is still airing. Its October 9 premiere at 11.4% was the best premiere of any 2026 miniseries, according to Soompi. It climbed to 18.5% for episode 4 (18.4% in the Seoul metro area) and 19.5% on October 24. It runs 12 episodes, so the order may still change.
• Love on the Menu (사랑이 온다) numbers differ by outlet, by 0.4 to 0.6 points. Soompi reported a peak of 16.7% (episode 23, October 18); Korean outlets such as Wikitree reported 17.3%. Call it roughly 17%. The chart uses Soompi’s figure.

The leads of Agent Kim and Doctor X also come up in our look at the most popular Korean actors of 2026.

How did Agent Kim Reactivated reach 23%?

It opened at 9.5%, hit 15.7% by episode 2 and 21.6% by episode 4. Those are Nielsen Korea’s nationwide figures by episode as reported by Money Today. At the time, 21.6% was the highest rating of any 2026 drama, including weekend and daily dramas.

From episode 4 to the end it never dropped below 20%. The finale on July 25 drew 23.0% nationwide and 23.4% in the Seoul metro area. The 27.1% you’ll see in headlines is that episode’s 순간 최고 (peak-minute rating), the single highest minute, not the episode average.

The show is based on a webtoon of the same name, with So Ji-sub as a former North Korean special agent turned single dad (per Gallup Korea’s July report). The numbers outside the TV ratings were just as big:

• Total TV audience: production company Fantagio, citing Nielsen Korea, put cumulative viewers for episodes 1 to 10 at 25,638,593, a cumulative reach of 52.56% (first runs plus reruns, reported by Star News).
• Netflix: three weeks at No. 1 on the global non-English TV list and eight weeks in the Top 10, per Netflix’s official Top 10 data.
• Second-best SBS Friday–Saturday drama ever: behind only The Penthouse 2 (29.2%), in Soompi’s ranking.

What is the highest rated Korean drama of all time?

Going by the figures reported at the time, 1990s dramas reached the 60% range. The two most often cited are KBS2’s First Love, whose finale on April 20, 1997 was reported at 65.8%, and SBS’s Sandglass (1995) at 64.5%. Sandglass emptied the streets so reliably that people called it the “go-home clock”.

Don’t compare those numbers one-to-one with today’s. The 1990s figures come from an era with different survey firms and methods, and the values here are as cited by Wikipedia from reports of the time. Even in the same period, firms disagreed: episode 30 of Baker King Kim Tak-gu in 2010 was 50.8% by TNmS and 49.3% by Nielsen.

Even allowing for that, the direction is clear. Using only Nielsen Korea figures from 2010 onward, the top dramas went from 49.3% (Baker King Kim Tak-gu, 2010) to 45.1% (My Golden Life, 2018), 38.2% (Young Lady and Gentleman, 2022) and now 23.1% (Agent Kim Reactivated, 2026).

Cable, general-programming and ENA records are tracked separately, because they are measured against pay-TV households. These are the Nielsen Korea figures compiled on Wikipedia:

📺 Highest-rated non-network K-dramas ever (Nielsen Korea, nationwide pay-TV households, compiled by Wikipedia)

Queen of Tears is tvN’s all-time No. 1, and Extraordinary Attorney Woo is ENA’s. For the film side of the record books, see the Korea box office all-time ranking.

No single number proves why ratings fell, but Gallup Korea’s own changes are a clue. From 2023 it widened its survey from “TV programs” to programs on TV and online video services, citing the surge in online video users. In Gallup’s surveys, the share of Koreans using OTT services in a year rose from 25% in 2019 to 67% in 2025. For what Koreans watch and where, read what Koreans watch: OTT and TV explained.

What is a good rating for a K-drama in 2026?

It depends entirely on the channel and the time slot. For a network miniseries, double digits means a hit and anything over 20% gets called a phenomenon. On cable, 5% can top the cable chart for the night, and close to 10% is a hit. Here is what that looked like with real 2026 numbers:

📊 What ratings mean by channel and slot, 2026 (Nielsen Korea nationwide; cable and general-programming channels use pay-TV households)

KBS2 weekend dramas have a high floor. According to Soompi, Love on the Menu topped every Sunday’s ratings for almost its whole run, moving between about 14% and 17%. New dramas on general-programming channels, by contrast, often sit at 1 to 2%. So the same 10% is a flop for a KBS2 weekend drama and a smash for a tvN weekend one.

The difference between network, cable and general-programming channels gets its own explainer in this series: Korean TV channels explained.

How are Korean TV ratings measured?

The industry standard is Nielsen Korea. Most news reports label their figures “Nielsen Korea, nationwide households”. Here is how Nielsen Korea’s own site describes it:

• Measurement: meters in panel households record who watched, when, which channel and for how long. Data for the previous day is collected from 2 a.m. each day.
• Network daily rankings: household ratings (%) across 13 regions.
• Cable: based on pay-TV subscriber households since March 2017. General-programming channel rankings have been published since December 2012.
• Households vs individuals: the “X%” in news stories is usually a household rating. Viewer counts (in thousands) are per person.
• Nationwide vs Seoul metro: the same episode gives different numbers. The finale of MBC’s Judge Lee Han-young was 12.8% nationwide and 13.2% in the Seoul metro area.

The big number in a headline is usually the peak-minute rating. Judge Lee Han-young’s episode 13 averaged 13.6% but peaked at 17.4%. Check whether a figure is an average or a peak, and nationwide or metro, before you compare.

Viewing on Netflix and other streaming services generally isn’t counted in these TV ratings. Streaming performance is tracked separately, through the figures each service publishes.

What is the most popular TV show in Korea right now?

In Gallup Korea’s October 2026 survey, the No. 1 show was Doctor X, at 9.8%. Where ratings measure who watched on a TV at that hour, Gallup Korea asks around 1,000 adults nationwide every month, by phone, to name up to two programs they enjoy most these days. Since 2023, Netflix titles count too.

Agent Kim was still No. 1 in August, after it had ended. June’s winner, Teach You a Lesson, is a Netflix original with no TV rating at all. There was no survey in February because of the Lunar New Year holiday and the Winter Olympics. Doctor X’s 9.8% in October is the third-highest of the seven SBS shows that have topped this survey, after Agent Kim (18.9%) and My Love from the Star (11.5%). Second and third in October were 100 Days of Deception (4.0%) and Love on the Menu (3.8%).

What can you do in Seoul?

Watching this year’s top dramas in Seoul comes down to your hotel TV, Netflix and filming locations.

• Watch the broadcast: as of October 2026, Doctor X airs as SBS’s Friday–Saturday drama and Love on the Menu as KBS2’s weekend drama. Your hotel TV puts you on the same schedule as Korean viewers.
• Watch with English subtitles: Agent Kim Reactivated, Doctor X: Mafia in White, 100 Days of Deception, Undercover Miss Hong and Teach You a Lesson have all appeared in Netflix’s Top 10 (as of October 2026; availability varies by country).
• Visit filming locations: Seoul filming spots for the 2026 hits haven’t been confirmed in official records yet. Start with the places that have: officially verified K-drama filming locations in Seoul and Seoul movie filming locations.
• Go to a broadcaster: if you want to see a recording in person, a music show is the most realistic option. See how to attend a K-pop music show.