Han Ji Min and Lee Jun Hyuk’s Love Scout achieves personal best rating of 10.5 percent; Motel California premieres strong

Love Scout manages to break into double-digit ratings with the new episode release; meanwhile, Motel California premieres with strong viewership.

By Hrishita Das

Updated on Jan 11, 2025 | 10:45 AM IST | 40.5K

Love Scout: courtesy of SBS, Motel California still: courtesy of MBC

Love Scout is an ongoing South Korean series starring Lee Jun Hyuk and Han Ji Min in the leading roles. However, the new episode has managed to record high ratings, setting a new personal milestone. The show's plot follows two opposite individuals who eventually develop feelings for each other.

On January 11, 2024, Nielsen Korea unveiled the viewership ratings for shows that aired the day before. The third episode of Love Scout claimed the top spot in its time slot across all channels, achieving an average nationwide rating of 10.5 percent—more than double the rating of its premiere just a week earlier. The show also dominated its time slot among the key demographic of viewers aged 20 to 49, earning an average rating of 2.8 percent.

The plot of the series follows Kang Ji Yun, a confident and successful CEO of a headhunting company who devotes all her energy to staying ahead in the fiercely competitive industry. Despite her professional achievements, Ji Yun is utterly clueless when it comes to managing her personal life.

Meanwhile, the new K-drama Motel California faced stiff competition from Love Scout, which airs in the same time slot. Despite this, MBC’s new romance drama got off to a promising start, with its first episode earning an average nationwide rating of 4.5 percent.

Based on Shim Yoon Seo’s 2019 novel Home, Bitter Home (literal title), Motel California is a romance drama penned by Lee Seo Yoon and directed by Jang Joon Ho and Kim Hyung Min. The story centers on a woman who was raised in a rural motel named Motel California. After fleeing her small-town roots, she returns 12 years later, hoping to rekindle her first love while confronting the challenges that await her in the place she once called home.

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