‘Saimdang’ shunned by more TV viewers, ‘Good Manager’ rises

SEOUL, Feb. 9 (Yonhap) — “Saimdang, Memoir of Colors,” SBS TV’s big-budget series starring Lee Young-ae, suffered another blow as its competitor “Good Manager” enjoyed a steady rise in ratings, data showed Thursday.

According to Nielsen Korea, Wednesday’s episode five of “Saimdang” recorded a 10.7-percent nationwide viewership, dropping 1.6 percentage points from last week’s episode.

In this file photo, Lee Young-ae of SBS TV’s “Saimdang, Memoir of Colors,” poses for the camera during a media event held Jan. 24, 2017 at the Lotte Hotel in Seoul.

The part fantasy, part period drama is loosely based on the life of Shin Saimdang, Korea’s legendary icon of maternity from the Joseon period.

The show started out strong, with the first two back-to-back episodes on Jan. 26 and chalking up 15.6 percent and 16.3 percent nationwide viewership, respectively. But the show started to struggle afterwards. The latest episode gave more screen time to the adult Saimdang played by Lee, a mega “hallyu” star of the famed TV show “Daejanggeum,” but apparently this still wasn’t enough to stop viewers from going elsewhere.

This composite photo captured from KBS 2TV’s “Good Manager” shows actor Nam Gung-min playing accountant Kim Sung-ryong at the fictional TQ Group.

“Good Manager,” KBS 2TV’s office comedy that airs in the same timeslot as “Saimdang,” attracted more viewers. Episode five on Wednesday recorded 15.5 percent viewership, up 1.7 percentage points from last week.

The Wednesday-Thursday comedy series stars Nam Gung-min as Kim Sung-ryong, an accountant at the fictional TQ Group and a genius at misappropriating corporate funds for personal use. He inadvertently ends up fighting against greater corruption within the workplace to save the ailing company.

It also boasts a strong supporting cast, including actress Nam Sang-mi, idol singer Junho of group 2PM and veteran character actor Park Young-gyu.

MBC TV’s island castaway series “Missing 9″ trailed far behind, with viewership for Wednesday’s episode falling further to 3.8 percent.