Before Squid Game rocketed to No. 1 in 94 countries, with 142 million viewers and over 3 billion minutes watched, Story of Yanxi Palace was in 70 countries with 700 million viewers in a single day, reaching more than 15 billion views and becoming Google's most searched show in 2018, even though Google isn’t available in China. Yet most Americans have never heard of it.
Propelled by Netflix’s push for global dominance, Americans are discovering a taste for international content. A whopping 97 percent of US Netflix subscribers watched non-English content last year. Interest in Korean dramas has doubled in the past two years, while anime increased 50 percent from 2019 to 2020. With Asia accounting for more than half of Netflix’s new subscriber base, expect more hits from South Korea and Japan.
But what about the second-largest entertainment creator from a market where Netflix doesn’t operate?
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