Starting from top: MBC's "Royal Family," KBS' "The Thorn Birds," and SBS' "49 Days"

MBC series “Royal Family” led the primetime slot for Wednesdays and Thursdays for the first time, according to the findings by two media research companies on Friday.

“Royal Family” starring Yum Jung-ah, Kim Young-ae and Ji-sung marked an average viewership rating of 11 percent on Total National Multimedia Research’s (TNmS) chart and 14.4 percent on AGB Nielsen Media Research’s (AGB) chart, the figures showing an improvement of four to six percent on average from last week.

In this week’s episodes, JK Group’s matriarch Gong Soon-ho (Kim) appoints her widowed daughter-in-law In-sook (Yum) as the president of JK Club in order to maintain good relations with the future wife of the president who happened to be close friends with In-sook. In-sook swears that she will never let go of her newly gained power.

KBS melodrama “The Thorn Birds” starring Han Hye-jin, Kim Min-jung and Joo Sang-wook came next, yielding an average viewership rating of 8.2 percent on TNmS’ poll and 9 percent on AGB’s report, which is about a two to three percent rise from last time.

Yu-kyung (Kim) breaks up with her lover Young-jo (Joo) after learning that it was his grandfather that pressured her mother to abandon her when she was a child. After giving birth to his child, Yu-kyung then passes the burden to Jung-eun (Han) leaving her mad.

New SBS series “49 Days” which kicked off on Wednesday, scored marks close to the "The Thorn Birds," yielding an average viewership rating of 8 percent on TNmS’ data and 8.8 percent on AGB’s report.

“49 Days” which is a fantasy melodrama starring Nam Kyu-ri, Lee Yoo-won, Jung Il-woo, Jo Hyun-jae, Bae Soo-bin and Seo Ji-hye, starts with the plight of a girl named Shin Ji-hyun (Nam) who falls into a deep coma after a car accident and finds herself a wandering soul who is given an instruction by a god of death (Jung) to win the sincere tears of three people in order to return to life.

In the meantime, she possesses the body of another girl named Song Yi-kyung (Lee) to accomplish that task, only to find out that things are not what they seem among people whom she thought adored her.

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