[Edaily Starin Gim Ga Yeong Reporter] During this year’s Chuseok, the short holiday made it difficult to find a “holiday” atmosphere on television. The Chuseok special variety shows that broadcasters used to rush to schedule during every holiday have all but disappeared.

According to Nielsen Korea, the program that topped the ratings during the Chuseok holiday was the movie "The Man Who

," aired by SBS. "The Man Who Lives with the King" recorded a nationwide household viewership rating of 11%.
Among other Chuseok specials, KBS2’s “Your Life Is a Never-Ending Story—Lee Seung-cheol” recorded viewership ratings of 2.9% for Part 1, 4.4% for Part 2, and 4.2% for Part 3, while SBS’s “THE Lee Eun-gyeol—Chuseok Special Magic Concert” remained at 2.7% for Part 1 and 2.3% for Part 2. “The Man Living with the King,” which drew 16.93 million viewers, recorded higher viewership ratings than the new programs prepared as Chuseok specials.
Although the Chuseok special programs failed to achieve remarkable results, the lack of noteworthy special programs during this year’s holiday is also cited as a point of regret. Numerous programs, including the “Idol Star Athletics Championships,” which is scheduled every holiday season, faced the challenge posed by the “2026 Aichi Nagoya Asian Games.” MBC previously stated, “Since this Chuseok holiday overlaps with the Asian Games, it is reportedly difficult to schedule this year’s ‘Idol Star Athletics Championships.’” Instead of producing new special programs, existing shows such as “I Live Alone,” “Omniscient Interfering View,” and “What Do You Do When You’re Bored?” were produced and aired as Chuseok specials.
Since the three major terrestrial broadcasters are covering the “Asian Games,” they lacked the capacity to schedule new Chuseok special programs. Even if produced, such programs would inevitably be overshadowed by the attention and buzz surrounding the “Asian Games.” Consequently, the networks opted to utilize existing shows rather than produce new ones.
A broadcasting industry official stated, “This Chuseok coincided with the Asian Games, so there wasn’t much of a push to actively produce special programs,” adding, “We used to produce pilot episodes during every holiday and turn those that received a positive response into regular series, so this is a disappointing situation.”