Hello, I saw a discussion on this before on MDL and went looking for it to see if I could help. I found some explanations under "Thai Drama Airing Schedule" and "A Thai person's view on Thai actors and actresses that are mixed race" where a fellow MDL-er named Zig who is from Thailand kindly gave more clarity. I will copy and paste Zig's comments here:
"For dramas that air on national networks (Channel 3, 5, 7, 9 or Mcot - but Channel 9 Mcot is becoming a cable network channel) (a.k.a. "lakorns"), they have 2 kinds of dramas:
1. Weekday dramas that air around dinner time, a.k.a "Evening Lakorns"
They air on weekdays (either 4 or 5 days a week, sometimes they don't air on Fridays) around 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening for only 30-60 minutes before the 8 o'clock news. I can't think of a drama in this time slot right now, but sometimes they air dubbed Korean/Chinese dramas at this time.
2. Dramas that air at night, a.k.a. "After News Lakorns"
They air 2 or 3 days at a time like this: Monday-Tuesday (http://mydramalist.com/13865-kleun-cheewit), Wednesday-Thursday (http://mydramalist.com/16323-padiwaradda), Friday-Saturday-Sunday (http://mydramalist.com/9853-game-rai-game-rak). The time is after daily news finish airing at around 8.45 PM and they run for almost two hours (until around 10.30 PM). They're the most popular form of lakorns. When they finish airing, some networks/channels show their re-runs during the day but at least a month after they finish airing (and housewives watch these re-runs).
For dramas that air on cable networks (GMM, One, GDH, Channel 8, etc.) (a.k.a. "series"), they don't really have a format for airing but mostly have this common point:
1. They air very late at night. Sometimes they air at 10 PM (http://mydramalist.com/16667-sotus-the-series) and sometimes they air at 11 PM, and they show re-runs right away after the original run is finished, and their re-runs are usually online, on Line TV or other mobile apps.
2. They air only once a week. It can be on any day of the week. It's up to them. Hormones (http://mydramalist.com/10032-hormones) aired every Saturday, and Ugly Duckling (http://mydramalist.com/13254-ugly-duckling-series-...) was aired on Sundays."
and
"What you seem to enjoy watching are called lakorn, the ones that are in traditional format and airs at night on national TV channels. The new ones like Hormones and Ugly Duckling are aired on cable networks, not to be confused with lakorns, we call them "series". ... The "series" that are up to Korean standard these days only aim for a narrow group of audience like teens. I think series producers don't really care to improve the country's overall standard. They're just aiming towards those teens who already enjoy Korean dramas."
