'Happy Together 3's special Big Bang episode on May 21 has surprisingly recorded the lowest rating in the show's 8th year run as 'Happy Together 3', and the lowest rating in 16 years counting all seasons of 'Happy Together'.

This comes as a huge shock as there had been immense interest in Big Bang's appearance on the program, as it was the first time the group had guested on a KBS variety show in 7 years.

Even the 'Happy Together' staff were likely expecting higher ratings (even though the show has been struggling recently), as the episode was aired as 100 minutes instead of the usual one hour. 

'Nielsen Korea' revealed its ratings report, which showed that the May 21 live airing of the show recorded 4.6% viewer rating for the national average. The episode before that, on May 14 had a rating of 5%. The previous lowest rating was the April 30 episode, which recorded 4.7%. So this means with 4.6%, the May 21 episode is the show's lowest viewer rating since the show's beginning in June 1999, combining all three seasons together.

One broadcast representative told Newsen, "Big Bang's appearance in KBS 'Happy Together' seems to have been the wrong move. It has proven the show is getting completely pushed over by the [SBS show] 'Jagiya'. KBS ambitiously prepared Big Bang's appearance, but in the ratings battle, it got pushed back." [For reference, 'Happy Together's main competition, SBS 'Jagiya' ('Darling'), recorded 6.7%.]

Another broadcast representative said, "It's worrisome that KBS' leading variety show with a 16 year history is going down hill."

It's hard to say what the cause of the low ratings were, as it could have been that there wasn't a variety of guests this time for it was just a Big Bang only special, or that it was a longer 100 minute episode, or just other unexpected reasons.

Some netizens gave their personal opinion on the matter. One commented, "If one or two Big Bang members guested along with other different guests, the ratings would have been higher. Since they were the only guests, it turned me away and made me change the channel." Another netizen wrote, "It's possible that many more people would have used the 'watch again service' (viewed the episode later online) rather than the live airing."

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What do you think was the reason behind the low viewer rating?