Park Seo-joon‘s Itaewon Class concluded its successful 8-week run on Saturday night with a record-high nationwide Nielsen TV rating of 16.548 percent, making the average rating of its 16 episodes equal to 11.832 percent.

These figures make Itaewon Class the all-time sixth highest-rated Korean drama in cable television in terms of both peak and average ratings. Among JTBC dramas, the series is no. 2, second only to the smash hit 2018-2019 drama SKY Castle.

The following is the list of the 10 highest-rated Korean dramas in cable TV of all time based on nationwide average ratings (as of March 22, 2020). See the updated Top 20 here.

Mr. Sunshine (tvN) – 13.0% Goblin (tvN) – 12.9% SKY Castle (JTBC) – 12.5% Reply 1988 (tvN) – 12.4% Crash Landing on You (tvN) – 12.2% Itaewon Class (JTBC) – 11.8% 100 Days My Prince (tvN) – 9.0% Hotel del Luna (tvN) – 8.9% Signal (tvN) – 8.8% Encounter (tvN) – 8.5%

Meanwhile, the list below ranks the 10 highest-rated cable dramas of all time based on nationwide peak or highest single-episode ratings (as of March 22, 2020):

SKY Castle (JTBC) – 23.8% Crash Landing On You (tvN) – 21.7% Reply 1988 (tvN) – 18.8% Goblin (tvN) – 18.7% Mr. Sunshine (tvN) – 18.1% Itaewon Class (JTBC) – 16.5% 100 Days My Prince (tvN) – 14.4% Signal (tvN) – 12.5% The Lady In Dignity (JTBC) – 12.1% Hotel del Luna (tvN) – 12.0%

The success of Itaewon Class marks the second time JTBC was able to broadcast a breakout series in the first quarter of the year. The series followed in the footsteps of SKY Castle, which ended in February 2019.

Meanwhile, Itaewon Class is the second cable drama that achieved remarkable double-digit ratings in 2020. tvN’s Crash Landing on You ended last February with a peak rating of 21.7 percent, becoming the second series in cable TV to surpass the 20% mark.

Itaewon Class tells the story of an ex-convict (Park Seo-joon) who opens a pub in a popular tourist destination in Seoul with the aim of making it big in the restaurant industry and taking revenge on the man (Yoo Jae-myung) who destroyed his life. The series also stars Kim Da-mi, Kwon Na-ra, Kim Dong-hee, and Ahn Bo-hyun.

Directed by PD Kim Sung-yoon (Love in the Moonlight), Itaewon Class is the TV adaptation of a popular webtoon by Go Gwang-jin, who also wrote the script for the drama. It is available for streaming on Netflix.

ONGOING KOREAN DRAMAS: Alice | Do You Like Brahms? | Flower of Evil | Homemade Love Story | Lies of Lies | Missing: The Other Side | Record of Youth (POPULAR) | Stranger 2 | When I Was the Most Beautiful

ABOUT US: A site dedicated to Korean TV series, Kdramapal publishes up-to-date and relevant content about Korean dramas including casting news, drama rankings, roundups (recaps), synopses and general info, and TV ratings. Visit us again for updates, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.