Olympics-driven ratings destruction has finally arrived, made even more confusing by all sorts of rescheduling that put dramas that used to be in different time slots up against each other. The delayed dramas were lucky, because they were shoved aside by the most popular events and didn’t have to compete against stuff like the marathon and soccer (football). The only show that wasn’t affected at all was Beginners!, which didn’t air an episode.

You can get complete coverage of the drama ratings including Olympic ratings and how all the time slots shaped up at TokyoHive here. I’m only keeping track of my slate of dramas (the ones I’ve considered doing reviews for) for this season.

Prime Time Shows

GTO  (01) 15.1%, (02) 13.3%, (03) 12.3%, (04) 13.9%, (05) 11.5%

Iryu Sosa 2  (01) 13.3%, (02) 13.7%, (03) 11.6%

Ghost Mama Sousasen  (01) 15.2%, (02) 11.0%, (03) 11.0%, (04) 9.5%

Summer Rescue  (01) 14.7%, (02) 11.6%, (03) 10.1%, (04) 6.8%

Kuro no Onna Kyoushi  (01) 12.9%, (02) 10.4%, (03) 8.8%

Beginners!  (01) 8.5%, (02) 9.9%, (03) 5.9%

Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan  (01) 7.8%, (02) 6.0%, (03) 5.6%, (04) 7.1%, (05) 5.5%

Boys on the Run  (01) 7.5%, (02) 5.4%, (03) 7.3%, (04) 3.9%

Late Night Shows

Sprout  (01) 02.4%, (02) 02.5%, (03) 2.9%, (04) 2.6%, (05) 2.1%

So, for every drama, the most recent episode was the least rated episode of the season, and by a wide margin in all cases. The biggest ouches were Boys on the Run, which landed episode four with just over half the ratings of its first episode and entered failure territory (under 4%), and Summer Rescue, which dropped to less than half its first episode ratings, and entered second tier territory after being in double-digits all season.

I don’t think any of these figures should be indicative of how good the episodes were, but rather how good the competition – especially the Olympic competition – was. If you think it might be interesting to see what events Japanese viewers decided to watch instead of these dramas, TokyoHive has the whole breakdown.

Anyway, it’s just one more week before we can get more definitive numbers on these shows. In the meantime, it only happens once every four years, and it’s the best thing us humans do on a regular basis, so don’t miss the Olympics! If you don’t mind the low resolution, KeyHoleTV offers a way to see the Japanese coverage (provided you’re in a time zone conducive to watching).