'Mr. Trot' producer shares thrill of winning ratings war

Seo Hye-jin, chief producer and director at TV Chosun, speaks in this undated photo. Courtesy of TV Chosun

By Park Ji-won

While preparing the trot audition show “Mr. Trot” last year, Seo Hye-jin, a chief producer at TV Chosun, thought that it would be nice if the show were to exceed the 27 percent ratings record established by JTBC's hit drama “SKY Castle” last year.

If so, the TV Chosun show would set a new record in viewership ratings on cable television.

The music competition show stormed into the ratings chart, starting at 12.5 percent for its first episode on Jan. 2, and continuing to rise every week.

Seo and her team were overwhelmed by viewers' explosive response to the show. When seven finalists competed on March 12 to win the title, the ratings reached 35.7 percent, far higher than Seo had expected.

“We had never thought it would surpass the 30 percent range,” Seo said during a recent roundtable interview with the media at TV Chosun on Friday.

The more popular the show became, she said, the more pressure the staff had to shoulder.

“All eyes were on our show. The audiences were so focused that any tiny mistake would invite a slew of criticism,” she said. “So we took our job seriously and tried hard to get back to our viewers regarding every mistake.”

The drama continued until the last episode on March 12.

The show failed to name the winner because of a glitch in the system that was counting real-time votes cast by fans. Over 7.7 million text message-based votes were cast during the two-hour program. Two days later, it announced its winner ― Lim Young-woong.

Seo recalled the counting issue was one of the most unexpected and surprising moments in her career.

“We were prepared to count more than 10 million real-time votes by using a tallying program…. We didn't expect a situation like this would happen,” Seo said when asked how she felt about the counting error, adding that she never experienced a situation like that during her two-decade career as a producer. “We figured out that it was simply a software problem.”

Some alleged vote rigging in the selection of the final winner to favor a particular contestant as the announcement of the winners was delayed.

Seo dismissed this, saying the process was fair and transparent.

She said she felt heavy responsibility as the show gained more attention. She put more effort on giving feedback to the viewers through various channels, she said.

In a move to respond to the viewers' opinions, the program started to release “fancams” through its official Youtube channel, a new addition for the second season.

When asked about the reason behind the show's popularity across generations, Seo said, “I think our viewers found the program combining a talent show format with trot new and interesting. We expected that younger fans could enjoy the second season but didn't know the so-called 'fandom' would expand so much based on those viewers, which is now a key to the success of the program.”

She pointed out the quality vocalists also led the success while the first season also laid the groundwork in terms of establishing the format for viewers.

Seo added that the company is in discussion with Tencent to export its content.

“We cannot disclose details because of the ban on Korean shows by the Chinese government … whether our program will be directly exported to China or the show format licensed. But Tencent and TV Chosun are in talks upon their request.”

The finalists are also planning to perform in other East Asian countries in the near future.

The huge success of “Mr. Trot” is the result of TV Chosun's concerted investment to recruit producers from outside.

TV Chosun's main audience members are middle-aged or older. Due to the limited number of viewers, it struggled in the ratings war against its archrival JTBC.

On the back of breaking news including the scandal surrounding Cho Kuk, former senior presidential secretary for civil affairs and justice minister, the channel gained more interest from viewers.

Meanwhile, JTBC, a rival network ran by the JoongAng Ilbo, a major daily newspaper, has been continuously gaining trust and popularity among viewers thanks to its breaking news, popular entertainment shows and dramas.

However, since 2018 when TV Chosun started to actively recruit star entertainment directors from major broadcasting networks including Seo, MBC's Moon Kyung-tae who directed popular series “Living Alone” and “Real Man” and MBC's Lee Byung-hyuk who directed hit shows including “The Guru Show Show” and “I am a Singer,” it released hit shows “Wife's Taste” and “Taste of Love,” which were also directed by Seo.

Moon also directed “Miss Trot,” playing a huge role in establishing the audition competition shows' popularity. Jeon Soo-kyun, who directed “Mr. Trot” was also working at JTBC directing “SuperBand.”

Seen is a poster of TV Chosun's audition show “Mr. Trot.” Courtesy of TV Chosun