O.G. Korean dating show 'Heart Signal' shows members' true feelings

Each season features eight young people — four men and four women — who live together in a house dubbed "Signal House" for a month as they engage in heart-fluttering interactions.

Non-celebrity cast members appear in ″Heart Signal″ and reside at 'Signal House,' exchanging romantic feelings and flirting [CHANNEL A]

Korea's dating reality shows have been seeing massive success on a global scale, especially after Netflix's "Single's Inferno" went viral.

But the craze all started with Channel A's "Heart Signal," which began its first season in 2017. Since then, it has solidified itself as one of the most popular dating shows in Korea. It is currently in its fourth installment, still managing to set viewers' romantic senses on fire.

The tension is especially high this week as the fourth season is set to wrap up with its last episode on Friday. The previous episode on Aug. 25 held 3.05 percent in viewership ratings, the highest for the show so far. Each season features eight young people — four men and four women — who live together in a house dubbed "Signal House" for a month as they engage in heart-fluttering interactions.

Park Chul-hwan, main producer for ″Heart Signal,″ speaks during an interview with local reporters at Channel A's headquarters in Mapo District, western Seoul, on Monday. [CHANNEL A]

The show has been seeing more success as it added an installment, with the latest being the most successful. Park Chul-hwan, the show's main producer, says it's all thanks to the cast, who became more "honest with their feelings" despite being in front of the camera.

"All eight members of the Signal House were unique in their own way, and this helped the show to succeed," Park said during a group interview with local reporters at Channel A’s headquarters in Mapo District, western Seoul, on Monday.

Park, who seemed proud to have created a show that "kind of contributed in igniting the Korean-made dating reality show frenzy," said that what differentiates his program from other dating reality television shows like "EXchange” (2021-), “Single’s Inferno” (2021-), “I Am Solo” (2021-) and “Love After Divorce” (2021-), is that there are "no rules" except that the participants follow their hearts.

“We made the choice not to have so many rules in place during filming,” Park said. “To portray the relationships between the cast as they naturally are and to show that clearly was the goal. Other than the one rule that the members of Signal House have to go on dates with each other, we didn’t put any other devices in place.”

Main poster for the fourth season of ″Heart Signal″ [CHANNEL A]

Park also said it was great to see "viewers engaging in talks on online forums and social media with their impressions of the scenes and cast."

"We also conduct interviews with the cast throughout, and ask about their feelings and how they see themselves and the other members. But human emotions are so complex that we tend to let some aspects slip through our fingers. It's amazing to see how viewers catch all those aspects that we weren't able to deal with and make them seen," Park said.

Having non-celebrity cast members was a double-edged sword, according to Park, in that the rawness and authenticity of their responses and emotions could be shown, but also that “nothing really ever happened” at the Signal House.

Producer Park Chul-hwan [CHANNEL A]

“Having people inexperienced with the camera in front of them has the advantage of being able to show themselves just as they are, but most of the time it also meant that nothing of significance was ever happening,” Park said. “When I was editing the first episode of the first season of ‘Heart Signal’ I almost had a breakdown because it was so difficult to edit out a story from the mundane everyday events that we had filmed.”

The fourth season of “Heart Signal” has been criticized for its allegedly uneven screen time given to the cast members, with many pointing out that one of the female members, Kim Ji-young, was shown much more than the other female members. This was not because the producers were favoring Kim, Park said, but because they had to show the emotional development of all the male members who were interested in Kim.

“We have never tried to accentuate the narrative of certain cast members,” Park said. “To tell the stories of all the people who had been interested in or had deep interactions with Kim, we had to feature Kim that much more, and that was the reason the screen time was divided as such.”

A scene from the fourth season of ″Heart Signal″ [CHANNEL A]

The popularity of “Heart Signal” and the longevity of the show will continue as long as the producers themselves believe in the power of love and are sincere about the question of what love is, he said.

“People have asked us how long we think a show like ‘Heart Signal’ could go on, and the answer is: as long as we remain candid and are dedicated to the task of delivering to viewers that fluttering feeling when you meet someone you like,” Park said. “And the way that people flirt and form attachments changes with the times, too, so we have endless material to deal with. We hope to make viewers grow, and we wish that they would think about what it means to form relationships with people and what it is like to fall in love.”

A scene from the fourth season of ″Heart Signal″ [CHANNEL A]

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]