Park Jihoon, Ong Seong-wu and Hwang Minhyun, From Wanna One to Rom-com Stars

Park Jihoon, Ong Seong-wu and Hwang Minhyun, from the former Mnet project boy group Wanna One, gave excitement to the small screen as youth male actors. Thanks to the images of them wearing school uniforms in "Produce 101", they naturally permeated into the male lead roles of youth dramas and became 'acting idols'.

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Park Jihoon, is acting passionately as a popular guy on campus in KBS' Monday-Tuesday drama "At a Distance, Spring is Green". Park Jihoon, who gained huge popularity by ranking second in Mnet's audition program "Produce 101 Season 2", has continued his idol career with Wanna One which was formed since then, and has been an actor since the end of the project group. In the web drama "Love Revolution" based on a popular webtoon last year, he showed a high teen romance full of excitement by playing the role of Gong Joo-yeong, who showed one-way love for Wang Ja-rim (Lee Ruby). This time, he will present both fun and touching moments as a youth with inner pain in "At a Distance, Spring is Green".

Not only Park Jihoon, but also Ong Seong-wu and Hwang Minhyun, who worked together in Wanna One, continued their idol images as lead males in youth romantic comedies. Ong Seong-wu emerged as everyone's first love Lee Soo with Shin Ye-eun (Kyeong Woo-yeon) in the JTBC drama "More Than Friends" last year. He recently confirmed his appearance in the Netflix film "Seoul Vibe", signaling a strong change in image. Hwang Minhyun also worked with Jung Da-bin as Go Eun-taek, the head of broadcasting at a high school, through JTBC's "Live On". Hwang Minhyun, who challenged his first drama through "Live On", is a perfectionist, but he meets star Jung Da-bin (Baek Ho-rang) and made many fans excited with his permeating high teen romance.

Park Jihoon, Ong Seong-wu and Hwang Minhyun entered the small screen as young male characters, but it is true that the results of these romantic dramas are disappointing. KBS2's "At a Distance, Spring is Green", JTBC's "More Than Friends" and "Live On" all had only 1% ratings. KBS' "At a Distance, Spring is Green" recorded the lowest viewer rating of 1.8% in the 5th episode (June 28th), and "More Than Friends" did not exceed 1.1% and "Live On" did not exceed 0%.

"The romantic comedy dramas that 10s and 20s generation usually watch have low ratings", a broadcasting official said. "This is because the viewers of romantic comedy have moved away from the small screens, but the influence measured by online responses is significant. It seems that the small screen and the online audience are divided". "At a Distance, Spring is Green" has a 1~2% viewership rating, but the CPI is 223.6, higher than the 222.1 of KBS2's "Revolutionary Sisters" which recently surpassed 30%, and SBS' "Racket Boys" which has a steady report card of 5%, as of June 14-2021 (as of 2021).

Park Jihoon, Ong Seong-wu and Hwang Minhyun, who were national idols in Wanna One have become the main characters of romantic comedies and are active across the home theaters and online. Attention is also focusing on the subsequent moves of Ong Seong-wu and Hwang Minhyun, who have mastered romantic comedies.