Credit: MBC News.
Although the Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열 administration has been waging a full-scale war against MBC News, viewers have been voting with their remotes. According to Nielsen Korea, ratings for MBC News, which had been the lowest among the three network TV stations, have steadily increased since June 2022, and overtook SBS News to come in second place in November. KBS News held onto its first-place ranking, although its lead over MBC News has shrunk by half over the past five months.
MBC News also maintained its strong position online, where it has long led among network and cable TV news stations. (See Starter Kit, “South Korea’s Media Landscape.”) According to Playboard, a site that collects Youtube statistics, clips by MBC News collectively earned 1.26b views from September to November, significantly outpacing SBS News (557.2m views), JTBC News (533.1m views) and KBS News (465.3m views) in the same time period. In November, MBC News led the world’s news channels by Youtube views.
