[Introduction] 2013 KBS & SBS Drama Awards - Ending The Year With A Bang

The live blog team is currently running on dangerous amounts of caffeine, and I’m pretty sure I just saw a purple elephant fly by the window but the show must go on. So far we’ve covered the all three Entertainment Awards from KBS, SBS, and MBC, the SBS Gayo Daejun, and the MBC Drama Awards. Now, we will be ending the year with a bang by proving live blog coverage of the 2013 SBS Drama Awards AND the 2013 KBS Drama Awards,  which are airing later today at the same time.

First, I’m going to shake my fists at these broadcasters for not separating their awards out. After that’s done, we’re happy to announce that we will be covering both awards at the same time here at Soompi. This is going to be an interesting way of finishing the year, that’s for sure.

I, Lordbordem will be covering the 2013 KBS Drama Awards while our team of sleepless editors (halves in unison and crystalcove) will guide you through the 2013 SBS Drama Awards. Stayed tuned for updates announcing the start of the live coverage of the SBS and KBS Drama Awards, starting in about 4 hours!

 But first, familiarize yourself with the candidates and the K-Drama  landscape in SBS and KBS with our review below.

2013 SBS Drama Awards

Looking back at 2013, it’s kind of scary to see how many great dramas SBS had produced over the span of 12 months. It’s a list that comprises dramas such as “Queen Of Ambition,” “Incarnation of Money,” “Jang Ok Jeong,” “The Heirs,” “That Winter, the Wind blows,” “I Can Hear Your Voice,” “The Master’s Sun” and a whole bunch of other long running dramas. 

In 2012, actor Son Hyun Joo won the “Grand Award” for his fantastic performance on the drama “The Chaser.” While he faced some stiff competition, it was still relatively safe to presume that the veteran actor would walk away with that award. This year, however, is almost impossible to call. Lee Bo Young or Lee Jong Suk have a great chance to win the “Grand Award” with the amazing success of “I Can Hear Your Voice.”

The same however could also be said for Gong Hyo Jin/So Ji Sub from “The Master’s Sun” along with Jo In Sung/Song Hye Gyo from “That Winter, the Wind blows.”  If there is one issue with having so many great dramas over the years, it is that it becomes almost impossible to predict how the awards going to get distributed. 

It’s going to be really interesting to see how this award pans out.

2013 KBS Drama Awards

The KBS drama department tend to operate rather differently compared to the two other main terrestrial broadcasters.  While SBS and MBC tend to focus on the 18~25 episode mini series style of dramas, KBS has always been the king of the long running drama series, the type of dramas that will probably see around 50 episodes from start to finish. While these dramas don’t tend to be extremely popular in the international scene, these long runners, rating wise, tend to eclipse every other show on TV. These are the dramas that still pull in 30%~40% ratings on a weekly basis and have absolutely no peers in the extremely lucrative 40~50’s viewer age group.

This, however, doesn’t mean that KBS doesn’t have few shorter hits as well. In previous years we’ve seen shorter dramas such as “The Slave Hunters,” “Brain” and “Iris” propelled their respective leads to the grand award. This year though, KBS’s line up of mini series seems rather lackluster save for one particular mention. The list is populated by dramas such as “Ad Genius Lee Taek Baek,” “Marry Him If You Dare,” “Beautiful Man,” “Queen Of The Office,” “Prime Minister and I,” “Iris 2,” “Shark” and the “Petal and the Blade.”  Unfortunately, most of these performed rather poorly and don’t really seem to have a great chance of taking any major awards.

However, there are two shorter dramas that has a good chance of beating extended drama favorites such as “You’re the Best Lee Soon Shin” and “King’s Family.” Both “Secret” and “Good Doctor” present themselves extremely strongly, having performed brilliantly in both ratings and in the eyes of critics.

They were two of the most popular dramas in the 2nd half of 2013, and it does appear likely that leads from both dramas such as Joo Won, Moon Chae Won, Hwang Jung Eun and Ji Sung will have a great chance of sweeping up a lot of awards amongst each other.

There are also daily dramas such as “Sincerity Moves Heaven” that could also have a chance of gathering up a few awards thanks to strong ratings over the year, but doesn’t seem likely to take any of the top awards given that it runs on KBS’s secondary channel, KBS 1. 

We will be ending the year with a bang, the live blog for 2013 KBS Drama Awards and the 2013 SBS Drama Awards will kick off  on December 31 starting at 8:00PM and 8:30PM KST, respectively. The actual shows start at 8:30 and 8:55, respectively. You can see what time that is in your respective time zones by going to this page. Or you can just look at the countdown below. I hope to see you all there!