The Seoul International Drama Awards are annual awards that have been awarded in South Korea since 2005. The event that distributes them — colloquially known as "the SDAs" — is a hybrid awards event in which some prizes are awarded from votes by an invitation-only jury, and others are the result of public voting. The public voting is further subdivided into votes from the Korean populace, votes from Japanese residents, and votes from people in the rest of the world.
They are unique in that they are only awarded to dramas, and in that they are awarded in several categories which are fully "international" in nature. That is, shows from countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, North America and South America directly compete against each other. Though the main awards presentation is done in Korean, the public voting process is itself a televised event, presented in both English and Japanese.[1]
In 2009, the fourth series of Doctor Who shared the "Favorite Foreign Drama of the Year Award" with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Then-former producer Phil Collinson and costume designer Louise Page accepted the award in Seoul. The category in which Doctor Who competed was exclusively voted on by the global internet public, meaning it would be somewhat erroneous to assume that the award was exclusively a measure of the popularity of Doctor Who in Korea. [2][3]