A poster for drama "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" / Courtesy of KT

By Baek Byung-yeul

"Extraordinary Attorney Woo," a drama made by KT's affiliate, KT Studio Genie, ended with a high viewership, lighting up the telecommunications company's successful diversification of its business into the media platform sector, the company said, Sunday.

The drama, which revolves around Woo Young-woo, a lawyer with autism spectrum disorder and who excels as an attorney working at a top law firm, ended with its 16th episode on Aug. 18. First aired on June 28, it has topped viewership ratings and popularity charts. Its last episode scored a rating of 17.53 percent.

"'Extraordinary Attorney Woo' has been greatly enjoyed by viewers and topped lists in ratings and popularity charts, creating a 'Woo Young-woo syndrome,'" a KT spokesman said.

KT previously announced its bid to secure more intellectual properties in media content and take on the media business as one of its main business areas. The company, which heralded that this year would be the first year it would see significant growth in the media and content business, planned to introduce about 10 examples of media content this year.

The company plans to invest more than 500 billion won ($374 million) over the next three years to produce around 30 dramas and 300 entertainment shows in order to raise the sales coming from the media business to 5 trillion won in 2025, from 3.6 trillion won in 2021. In the second quarter, the sales of its media affiliates rose 34.7 percent year-on-year to 285.3 billion won.

To further improve its presence in the media business, KT joined hands with media business powerhouse CJ ENM, as it announced last month that its video streaming platform, Seezn, and the latter's streaming service, Tving, will merge into a single platform to become the largest in the country.

KT and CJ ENM are expected to complete the merger process by December. After that, media content created by KT will be serviced on CJ ENM's streaming platform and cable TV channels.

"'Extraordinary Attorney Woo' made our cable TV channel, ENA, the most popular one on Wednesdays and Thursdays when the drama aired. In addition to such quantitative achievements, the qualitative ripple effect of the drama is expected to be greater, such as raising the possibilities and expectations for KT's content business," the official said.