E to the N to the A.
A few months ago, a relatively small channel by the name of ENA (a combination of the words entertainment and DNA) blew the charts as one of its programs became an instant success to both local and international audience. That show happens to be ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’, a series taking us in the world of autistic attorney Woo Young-woo as she works in a law firm with her extraordinary capabilities. Starring Park Eun-bin and Kang Tae-oh, the drama’s first episode drew in little less than 1% of viewers in South Korea, but the succeeding episode showed its figures climbing by at least 400%.
It is also so popular that Woo Young-woo’s appeal to save marine animals, especially whales, has led to the release of several whales and dolphins, with thanks to public pressure.
The program also simultaneously airs on Netflix and has amassed quite a following, including here in the Philippines where it has consistently stayed in the Top 10 shows during its run.
Due to its immense populatity, a webtoon series and a musical based on the series are some offshoots that fans of the program will expect in the future. A second season has also been discussed and will be aired in 2024.
With its meteoric rise and remarkable performance, ‘Extraordinary Attorney’ has become ENA’s single most important show in its history and is key to the channel’s overnight success in Korean cable TV.
ENA’s roots can be traced back to its days as SkyTV, a channel owned and operated by the KT Corporation. Initially launched in the early 2000s, SkyTV aired various programs from South Korea and beyond.
Its programming either draws upon or is also seen on its sister channels, which include SkyENT, SkyDrama, among others.
But in April 2022, along with some changes occurring in the over-the-top (OTT) side of KT, especially with the news of KT’s Seezn merger with CJ-JTBC-Naver’s TVING by the end of the year, SkyTV also took on a new identity.
Enter ENA (meaning has been mentioned above), a general entertainment channel on Korean pay television. Its sister channel has also been rebranded to ENA Play, which will focus on entertainment and variety content, while there would also be ENA Drama and ENA Story.
Historically, on Korean pay TV, programs from CJ-owned channels tvN, OCN, Mnet, as well as JoongAng Ilbo’s JTBC, rate high, given their respective brand’s relative recall to the market that they serve. But with ENA’s case, even in its previous iteration as SkyTV, it lagged behind these rivals until ‘Extraordinary Attorney’ came.
Perhaps, this situation is also worthy to be called as an ‘extraordinary’ case in the SK television landscape as there has never been a time when a ‘nugu’ and new station breached the 3% rating mark, more so the 10% bar with one drama series. Speaking of which, ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ has since entered the “top 10 highest-rated Korean cable drama series of all time” club, ENA’s first.
With the anticipated enduring success of the show, ENA has already lined-up drama serials until the end of the year. ‘Good Job’ starring Kwon Yuri of Girls’ Generation and Jung Il-woo of ’49 Days’ will be taking the spot of ‘Extraordinary Attorney’ next week.