The Ratings Proxy War
Choo Han-soo, who went by the survival club nickname MarineVictory, was once again leaving hate comments on the flood of Ryu Yeon-woo Survival Island mad-movie videos overflowing across YouTube.
Ever since the first episode had aired the previous week, the internet had been boiling over.
At first he had been glad that his hobby—survival games—seemed to be catching on with the public. But the moment Player 7 appeared on screen, something about the man soured his mood for reasons he could not name.
"Ugh, damn it. Chills again. Why does this keep happening? Did the weatherstripping on the window finally rot away?"
Watching Player 7—Ryu Yeon-woo—on the YouTube player somehow sent a cold shiver through his body.
It sounded absurd, yet every time he saw Yeon-woo he was dragged back to that day a few years earlier at a survival field, when a pack of high-school kids had whistled him into a corner and roasted him into total humiliation.
"Damn it… I even got frozen…"
They had herded him into a warehouse until he finally took a Freeze. Under the rules of the variety show Survival Island, that would have counted as a full Surrender.
For more than a year afterward the high-schoolers had held that over him, and even the club members had mocked him for folding.
Weird. Why does that bastard Yeon-woo always drag that memory up? Those punk kids with their ridiculous nicknames—ActingGod, AttentionWhoreKing…
Frowning, the former public-service worker MarineVictory Choo Han-soo set his hands on the keyboard.
"Huuuh…"
After dumping a full load of venom he felt the nameless, skin-crawling unease ease a little.
Man, watching those clips got me itching for a match. Wonder if there's a free slot…
Choo Han-soo dialed the survival-field owner who also ran the club.
"Hey, hyung-nim. It's Han-soo. Thinking of grabbing a game today—any open spots le—"
"Ah, no slots. Hyung's kinda busy right now, so I'm hanging up. Later, Han-soo."
Click—.
He pulled the phone from his ear and stared at the darkened screen, face twisting.
"Is this old man going senile? He knows damn well he's always short on people—how are there no spots? And what's he so busy with at a dead field that only sees internet mahjong when no customers show up?"
Meanwhile, the survival-field owner Ha Yun-sik—who had Choo Han-soo saved in his phone as "Dumbass"—hung up with a grin that stretched ear to ear.
"Haha, right this way, everyone. First I'll walk you through the gear."
"Yes—!"
A field that had been gathering dust for years was suddenly packed with customers.
And girl customers at that… Unbelievable.
Ha Yun-sik looked over the group in front of him.
They were fresh-faced college girls who, under normal circumstances, would never have given a survival game a second glance.
In all the years he had run the place he had seen the occasional woman, but five young co-eds showing up as a team and asking to learn the ropes? First time ever.
Even better—this isn't the only group.
This week alone the reservation board was solid black with bookings.
"Ooooh, praise be to Lord Ryu, amen."
"Sorry?"
"Ah, nothing. Just talking to myself. This way, please. These are the protective pads you'll wear during the game."
The sudden remark from the middle-aged owner made one of the girls tilt her head. Then her eyes lit up as she looked at the gear hanging on the wall.
"Whoa, this looks exactly like the stuff Ryu Yeon-woo wore. Insane."
"Seo-hyeon, take a pic of me once I'm geared up. Gotta upload it."
"Got it. Using the regular camera?"
"No way, basic camera's trash. Use the app."
Watching them chatter and snap photos, Ha Yun-sik's smile stretched even wider.
It was a sight he had never once seen in his dusty little field.
Yeon-woo scrolled through online chatter about Survival Island on his phone and gave a small nod.
"First episode pulled solid numbers, all things considered."
The premiere had hit 6.1 percent.
Because middle-aged and older viewers mostly stuck to terrestrial and general-programming channels, any show measured by traditional TV meters—especially one streaming on TVM—was always going to look lower on paper.
Even so, for a cable variety program the figure was extremely high.
TVM's core audience is basically people in their twenties and thirties anyway.
In exchange, the on-demand replay rates and the sheer volume of short clips circulating on SNS and YouTube were overwhelming.
Every popular post on the major communities, every shared clip on social media—the entire Korean internet seemed to be talking about nothing but Survival Island.
Still, the whole reason he had appeared on the show was to pull that audience over to the drama.
Yeon-woo checked today's programming grid and stroked his chin.
We clash early today.
SBC's drama Daytona, produced by Lake Film—the company he suspected of being a Baeksol money-laundering front.
The actual first episodes of the two dramas would not face off for another two months, but tonight they would fight a proxy war.
The entire lead cast is rolling out…
Tonight the stars of Daytona were appearing on SBC's flagship variety show Showtime, airing in the exact same time slot as Survival Island.
They filmed Showtime after the articles about me joining Survival Island dropped, so this is no coincidence.
If the other side was going to do variety promo anyway, they had clearly decided it was smarter to snuff out the competition's momentum while they were at it.
"Hmm. A straight-up head-to-head is always welcome. Tonight's episode will probably cover everything up through the end of Day One and the walk back to the lodge."
He had no idea what fireworks the rival cast might pull on their variety show, but Yeon-woo already knew every frame of the Survival Island footage that had been shot. He was confident.
He had built the winner's narrative beat by beat and directed every second of his own performance with absolute care; that effort was not going to be wasted.
A handful of people were gathering in the conference room to watch tonight's broadcast, so Yeon-woo headed to the company building with Manager Kim Min-su.
He opened the conference-room door, took one look at the crowd of staff and actors already assembled, and shook his head.
"A handful" was a serious understatement—the turnout was almost as big as premiere night.
"Um… does nobody have schedules? Plans with friends or anything…?"
"Nope. Ever since last week's premiere, watching this has been the highlight of my week."
"This is the schedule."
Son Jin-uk answered with a snort of laughter and waved him over.
Gathering for the premiere had already become tradition, but this was only episode two and still a surprising number of people had shown up of their own free will.
"Director Yoon, can we get a little spoiler?"
Yoon Mi-yeon shrugged and pointed at Yeon-woo and Kim Min-su.
"Ask those two. I don't know a single thing about the content either."
Every eye in the room flicked to Yeon-woo, then—deciding that was hopeless—shifted to Manager Kim Min-su.
Kim Min-su only grinned, zipped his lips shut with two fingers, and clamped his mouth tight.
"Sigh… thirsty viewers can only wait week after week…"
Just then, episode two began.
"Come on, sir. Even plastic BBs hurt like hell from this range. How about we call it a Surrender?"
The screen showed Yeon-woo shadowing Player 29 and forcing a clean Surrender kill.
The edit cut rapidly between Yeon-woo stalking from behind and the unaware player ahead, all set to taut, rising music—so cinematic it felt like a scene from an action thriller rather than a variety show.
On male-dominated communities the conversation mostly stayed locked on match analysis or split into pure stans versus pure haters tearing into each other. Fan cafés and general boards, meanwhile, began clipping every Yeon-woo highlight and spreading them far and wide.
The same reactions were playing out live among the staff packed into the conference room.
If anything, having Yeon-woo sitting right there only made them louder.
"This is insane. Actor-nim, were you a special-ops agent in a past life?"
"…Wow. Crazy. But how does the guy not notice someone following that close?"
Questions poured in real time.
The man on the screen was sitting next to them; all they had to do was turn their heads and ask.
That was probably why so many people had bothered to gather at the office this late on a non-World-Cup night.
Hmm. One of those questions just got a little dangerous…
Of course the "past life" remark had not been a real inquiry, but Yeon-woo carefully ignored it and answered the safer ones.
"Well… I think that player was so tense he simply couldn't hear the footsteps behind him. And with the helmet on for head protection, sound is muffled a bit."
"Ahh, right. He was wearing a helmet."
In truth, even with a helmet you would still hear human movement in a forest quiet enough to catch every cricket. But the staff seemed willing to accept the explanation.
Then Son Jin-uk shook his head.
"I've been living with this guy for years already. It's just his racial trait."
"…Racial trait?"
"Species characteristic. Game term."
Yeon-woo knew that much; he had been studying the new slang fairly diligently.
"Which part is the racial trait?"
"You didn't know? Your footsteps and presence just don't register. Even on set you pop up behind people and scare the hell out of them all the time."
"Hmm…"
Apparently the habits drilled into his body made him move with almost no presence even in everyday life.
I should consciously fix that too.
Yeon-woo quietly slipped over to Marketing Team Leader Gong Min-jeong and whispered.
"Min-jeong sunbae-nim. Can you pull the per-minute ratings for Showtime and Survival Island right now?"
"Yes, I can. I was about to check anyway. It won't match tomorrow morning's official numbers exactly, but we can see the sample-household IPTV figures."
Gong Min-jeong tapped at her laptop, then looked up at Yeon-woo with a bright expression.
"We're at 9.6 percent. SBC's Showtime is at 8.1!"
Yeon-woo nodded, a small smile on his lips.
That was a full 3.5-point jump from the premiere.
In the ratings proxy war for the dramas, they had cleanly taken the vanguard's head.
But they still had plenty of cards left to play.
Besides Survival Island itself, there was the self-produced basketball variety content they had filmed while shooting Parabola, ready and waiting on YouTube.
We're going to strip them bare.