Popular New Series in the Recent Years

Blooming Lady, starring Demet Evgar, Buğra Gülsoy and Mehmet Yılmaz Ak increased its’ ratings by 4.60 points in its second episode and achieved the highest jump of the last three seasons. The new series of the season, which has made the biggest debut since the Innocents, continued its upward trajectory in both the third and fourth episodes, achieving the season’s highest rating thus far.

The second-week bounce of new series provides a indicator road map, if not a definite one, for its future success. Historically, Turkish dramas with declining ratings after the second episode often face cancellation. In this statistic, the fact that the series start to advertise from the fourth episode and therefore start to lose ratings plays an important role. At the point of leapfrogging, Innocents holds the leadership of the last five seasons. Debuting on September 15, 2020, the series achieved a remarkable 6.37-point rating increase in its second episode. Despite an initial viewership of 4.0, it concluded its season as the runner-up with an impressive average rating of 13.03.

In second place is the series A Miracle. A Miracle, the series with the highest ratings in the last five seasons, it have achieved a remarkable 6.31-point jump in viewership during its second episode. Debuting with a strong rating of 8.53, the series surpassed the coveted 20-point mark in a short period. Notably, since the pandemic began, no other drama has experienced a second-episode increase exceeding four points. Blooming Lady has thus established a new record in this category with its impressive 4.60-point rise.

Record After Record

The new series The Brave emerged as a frontrunner in the first month of the 2023-2024 season, achieving a significant viewership increase of 2.17 points. Debuting with a rating of 2.78, the series impressed audiences by climbing to a 4.95 rating in its second episode. Roughly three months later, I Am Mother surpassed the previous record for the highest second-episode viewership jump. The series, which started its airing with a 4.50 rating, climbed to a 6.93 rating in its second episode. Two weeks later, Red Roses established a new milestone. Debuting with a commendable rating of 5.29, the series achieved a remarkable viewership increase of 2.56 points in its second episode, reaching a new high of 7.85. In addition, the series Secret of Pearls, which held the season premiere record, increased its rating by about two points (+1.83 points) in the second episode.

Due to pandemic lockdowns inflating overall ratings, a more accurate comparison for current series’ success might be those premiering after 2021. In this context, Golden Boy, which debuted on September 23, 2022, stands out. It achieved the highest second-episode jump of the past two seasons, with an impressive increase of 3.45 points. Building on this strong start, the series went on to become the most-watched of its season, boasting a remarkable average rating of 10.32.

Limitations of the Summer Season for New Series

The second episode jumps for new series can be a little more challenging in the summer season. Television viewership typically declines overall in the summer, parallel with decrease in the number of series broadcast. For this reason, the highest increases observed in summer series are one point. However, Love is in the Air, which premiered on July 8, 2020, stands out as the only summer series among the top 10 shows with the highest second-episode jumps in the last five seasons, achieving an impressive increase of 3.48 points.

In addition to the leap in the second episode, Blooming Lady continued its upward trend in the third and fourth episodes and reached the highest rating of the season on 5 March 2024. Other series like An Anatolian Tale, One Love, and Secret of Pearls also surpassed the coveted double-digit rating mark throughout the season.

This article, written by Burak Sakar, has been featured in the MIPTV 2024 edition of Episode’s Magazine.

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