BTS Jin features in various shows on TV and YouTube

Jin of BTS [BIGHIT MUSIC]

Jin of boy band BTS has been active on the small screen ever since announcing his first solo music “The Astronaut” late last month.

Shows he has been starring in are also seeing increases in viewership ratings and clicks.

According to Nielsen Korea on Monday, Sunday’s episode of SBS’s popular entertainment show “Running Man,” on which Jin appeared as a special guest, saw a 4.8 percent viewership rating, a slight increase from the 3.3 percent the week before. “Running Man,” a long-running show since 2010, has been seeing ratings between 3 and 4 percent this year.

The episode starring Jin recorded the second highest rating for the show this year, behind only the episode in February starring professional golfer Park Se-ri, which saw a 7.2 percent rating.

Jin, whose real name is Kim Seok-jin, is the eldest member of the seven-member boy band BTS and is expected to enlist for his mandatory military service soon, as early as within this year. Under the current law, all able-bodied Korean men must serve in the military for 18 months or more, depending on the service branch.

Jin announced during “BTS 〈Yet To Come〉 in Busan,” a free concert held on Oct. 15 to support the city’s bid to host the World Expo 2030, that he will be the second BTS member to officially release solo music, following J-Hope. He dropped his solo single “The Astronaut” on Oct. 28, which went on to top the iTunes Top Songs charts in 97 regions.

The member has also been featured on popular YouTube channels. Last month, he appeared as a guest on rapper Lee Young-ji’s YouTube entertainment show “Nothing Much Prepared” (translated). The show features the rapper as the host, who drinks alcohol with celebrity guests for an in-depth talk session.

The episode featuring Jin surpassed 13 million views on YouTube. Clips of scenes in which Jin shares his honest thoughts also went viral.

On Nov. 7, Jin appeared on the YouTube channel Hal Myung Soo, run by comedian Park Myung-soo and JTBC. Jin engages in a talk session with the famed comedian, and plays various games and missions on the episode.

Jin is not the only BTS member who has spurred his television career ever since the boy band announced a hiatus on activities as a group in June. During the announcement, the seven members also added that each of them will start pursuing solo activities.

On Oct. 25, BTS’s leader RM was announced to be one of the hosts on tvN's upcoming educational television show "The Dictionary Of Useless Human Knowledge.” The show explores humans from all over the world and discusses them from various perspectives in an effort to ultimately discover parts of "me" that were unknown.

BY HALEY YANG [yang.hyunjoo@joongang.co.kr]