By Marcus Goh

Over 2,100 series have been launched in Asia in the 2021—2022 season, shared Avril Blondelot, Head of Content Insight at Glance-Médiamétrie. Of these, 41% are classic romantic dramas. In Malaysia, the lion’s share of dramas are romantic ones—a whopping 60% of them.

Of the top five most streamed local dramas in Southeast Asia, all of them are local romantic dramas. Three of them hail from Indonesia because of the sheer size of the market—Vidio’s My Love My Enemy takes the top spot, with WeTV’s My Lecturer My Husband ranking #2 and Dear Dosenku (also from Vidio) in fifth place.

Viu’s The Broken Marriage Vow in the Philippines comes in third while iQIYI’s Kinn Porsche in Thailand comes in fourth. Avril noted that in the Southeast Asia region, Netflix has only 39% penetration, which could account for the popularity of local content in the region.
 

Supernatural elements also span the different genres of popular dramas, such as South Korea’s period drama Reborn Rich and romantic drama Yonder, as well as Singapore’s investigative drama Soul Detective.

* ATF 2022 Special—Sessions on Dec 9, 2022