Super Junior’s Leeteuk Reveals A Lesson He Learned About Variety Shows From His Manager Early On

Super Junior’s Leeteuk appeared on the December 19 broadcast of MBC’s “Radio Star” and revealed a valuable lesson his manager taught him at the beginning of his career.

He said, “I debuted after training for five years, and my manager said to me, ‘Because celebrity life might not pan out, let’s take managing lessons too.'”

“Before I debuted, I went with my manager around to broadcasting stations to promote myself. Suddenly, he showed me a schedule of variety programs. It had ‘Heroine 6,’ ‘X-Man,’ ‘Sponge,’ and other shows. He asked me which show I would send a celebrity on if I were a manager.”

Leeteuk said he didn’t know anything at the time, so he chose “X-Man” and “Heroine 6” because they were popular, buzzworthy shows. “But then my manager told me to look at the viewership ratings. Though they weren’t as buzzworthy, shows like ‘Sponge’ and ‘Vitamin’ had higher ratings. He told me that as a rookie, if I want to become known to a lot of people, I should choose shows that have a lot of viewers.”

“Because of that,” said Leeteuk, “the other Super Junior members were all doing ‘Super Junior Full House’ together, but I did a TBS traffic show instead.”