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The Korea Times

By Park Jin-hai
Korean broadcasters and streaming platforms are increasingly churning out TV dramas adapted from web novels and webtoons to cope with a downturn in advertising, rising production costs, and shrinking viewership in the content industry.
Last year, several dramas adapted from web novels or webtoons, including tvN’s Lovely Runner, Marry My Husband, Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born and MBC’s When the Phone Rings, proved highly successful.
These adaptations, often referred to as super intellectual properties (IPs), capitalise on the original material’s established reputation and fan base.


The trend of adapting super IPs into dramas has emerged as a key strategy for both traditional television and streaming platforms, with plans to continue this approach this year.
Naver Webtoon’s Study Group will be adapted into a Tving original drama, while Netflix will release The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call, based on Naver web novel and webtoon Severe Trauma Center: Golden Hour.
Kakao Webtoon’s Bunny and Her Boys will be adapted into the MBC drama Crushology 101.
Webtoon platforms and content providers are now directly engaging in production, moving beyond selling rights as they did in the past.
Tving’s original Study Group, set to premiere on January 23, tells the story of Yoon Ga-min (Hwang Min-hyun), a student at a vocational high school who dreams of attending a university and is forced to fight to focus on his studies.


The original webtoon has been continuously serialised since January 2019. The screen adaptation is helmed by YLAB Plex, the in-house production company of the webtoon’s IP holder YLAB.
Netflix’s The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call, starring Ju Ji-hoon, revolves around a brilliant trauma surgeon who joins a struggling university hospital. The show is produced by Naver Webtoon’s subsidiary, Studio N.
The show was adapted from a web novel written by a practising doctor. It has also been serialised as a webtoon. With over 38 million cumulative downloads, the web novel became a major hit in the contemporary fantasy genre and the webtoon version was equally well received.
MBC’s Crushology 101, slated for April, is produced by Kakao Entertainment. The romcom series centres on a young woman after her first heartbreak, finding herself surrounded by a variety of men.
The original webtoon, which accumulated over 170 million views, gained immense popularity, not only in Korea, but also in Japan, China, Taiwan and Thailand.


With a strong fan base and proven story appeal, these IPs are seen as valuable assets, prompting IP holding companies to take a more active role in production and share the potential profits from successful adaptations as the content market evolves.
Having previously shown its production capabilities in Disney+’s The Worst of Evil and Netflix’s Gyeongseong Creature series, Kakao Entertainment is now using its in-house production know-how across its subsidiaries to develop new dramas.
“We have the best understanding of our IPs, which enables us to effectively expand them into various content formats. Our recent successes like When the Phone Rings, Business Proposal and Not Others, have attracted both existing fans and new audiences,” a Kakao Entertainment official said.
Read the full story at The Korea Times.


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More K-dramas based on web fiction are launching, as streamers seek to reverse falling viewership. Webtoon platforms are getting involved


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