Viewing Figures: ‘Recipe for Love’ Remains Highest-Rated Drama in South Korea; ‘The Young and the Restless’ leads daytime drama ratings
South Korea: The KBS2 television series Recipe for Love has reigned as the highest-rated drama in South Korea since its debut. Premiering in January as a replacement for the previous ratings hit Our Golden Days, Recipe for Love airs every Saturday and Sunday and averaged 13.54% of South Korean viewership in May. This figure is slightly below its April average of 13.75% of viewership, continuing a slight downward trend for the series. The MBC drama Perfect Crown trailed closely behind, achieving 12.16% of viewership, slightly above its April figures. Meanwhile, KBS2’s Cabbage Your Life scored only 1.57% of viewership, falling significantly behind the competition.
Netflix: On the streaming side, the limited series Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine achieved 7.06 million views on Netflix, higher than any non-English language series on the platform. Overall, the series remained in the top 10 of Netflix's ratings charts for five weeks. The crime thriller series Murder Mindfully scored only 1.0 million views, ranking at the bottom of the streaming drama ratings.
United States: Continuing its three-decade-long run as America’s highest-rated daytime drama, CBS’s The Young and the Restless averaged more than 3.0 million viewers for the fifth consecutive month. Achieving 3.15 million viewers, the soap’s May ratings are consistent with its previous monthly figures. Fellow CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful ranked second, scoring 2.72 million viewers in May.
America’s newest daytime drama, CBS’s Beyond the Gates, has ranked at the bottom of American soap opera ratings since its February 2025 debut. The soap scored 1.60 million viewers, steady with its April figures. Meanwhile, the longest-running American daytime drama currently in production, ABC’s General Hospital, continues a slight ratings decline with 1.88 million viewers in May, down from its April average of 1.96 million viewers.
