It’s a foregone conclusion that 2011 will be remembered as a watershed year for South Korean TV. The nationwide roll-out in December of four new cable channels from local print-media giants and a CNN-like cable news channel from the national news agency made certain of that. What remains to be seen is whether these and other developments with less game-changing potential are ultimately viewed in a positive or negative light.
Similarly, while Korea chalked up another record year when it comes to cultural and entertainment exports – according to the Bank of Korea, overall earnings rose 25 percent to US$794 million, of which TV dramas and documentaries accounted for US$252 million – signs of a possible backlash against the ever-growing cultural dominance of Hallyu (the Korean Wave) began to emerge in some markets.
Signaling a willingness on their part to embrace the wider world of TV, major industry players such as SBS Media Holdings, the majority stakeholder in one of Korea’s three big terrestrial broadcasters, and Central Multi Broadcasting (CMB), Korea’s first cable TV provider, inked joint-venture pacts in 2011 with media giants in the United States while content providers of all stripes looked to broaden their offerings beyond the ever-popular soap drama. Such endeavours promise even greater choice for viewers at a time when the nation’s end-of-year switch to digital-only broadcasting and growing interest in Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) look likely to reshape the entire industry.
Old Guard and New Entrants
The simultaneous arrival of four new comprehensive cable TV channels and a news-only network would be cause for celebration in many countries; not so much in South Korea. Launched on December 1 last year with the aim of deregulating and diversifying the Korean broadcast industry, TV Chosun, JTBC, Channel A, MBN and News Y have so far drawn far less attention for their programming than for their role in deepening the political rift between Korea’s conservatives and liberals. Opponents of the policies of right-wing president Lee Myungbak, whose party spearheaded the TV industry liberalisation, see the awarding of cable TV licenses to three conservative newspapers – the Chosun, JoongAng and Dong-A dailies – and the Maeil Business Newspaper (Yonhap News Agency is the fifth player) as an effort to manipulate the media for political ends.
Political considerations aside, industry analysts are far from upbeat about the long-term prospects for the new entrants, given that Korea’s US$3b advertising market must now support seven networks instead of the traditional three (KBS, MBC and SBS).
“Already it’s clear that for the most part (the newcomers) are not spending enough on content creation, instead filling their airtime primarily with news, resulting in low ratings,” said Byung-ho Park, assistant professor of Mass Communications at the business school of KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). “And even for those like JTBC that are spending money, the competition for limited resources, including talent, makes it tough to survive.”
Korea/ Regional Ventures
A development that potentially adds to concerns the new channels may have about growing their market share was the launch in December of SBS-MTV and Nickelodeon Korea.
The two new offerings are the result of deal involving “big three” terrestrial broadcaster SBS and US giant Viacom. The joint venture, in which SBS holds a 51% share, is to produce Korean-language music, entertainment and programming for SBS K-Pop Star SBS-MTV – the rebranded MTV Korea – and Nickelodeon Korea for distribution across other Viacomowned platforms. Hopes are high that the channel will succeed in adding even further momentum to the spread of the Korean Wave worldwide.
“Though we still need to work on expanding distribution, we expect to be in a good position by the end of the year based on the strength of the content of MTV and Nickelodeon,” said Kim Kiwon, senior director at SBS-MTV. “K-pop is explosive across the globe and we hope to make the channel the pipeline for Korean artists to deliver their music to the world.”
In an earlier move that extended an ongoing trend in Korea towards localising foreign content and channels, cable services leader Central Multi Broadcaster (CMB) sealed a partnership in April 2011 with Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, a unit of Discovery Communications, under which the 24-hour, locallylicensed Discovery Channel Korea was unveiled.
Meanwhile, at about the same time as broadcasts under the SBS-Viacom partnership went live, industry rival CJ Media saw a joint venture of its own bear fruit with the broadcast debut in December of tvN K-Pop Star Hunt. An original series produced by FOX International Channels (FIC) in partnership with CJ and leading local production company Cube Entertainment, the Idol-style talent show is the first of its kind in Asia from a major pay-TV network and is broadcast in China and six ASEAN countries.
Overseas Exports
The region-wide popularity of tvN K-Pop Star Hunt comes on the heels of the success of M.net (CJ Group) offering Superstar K2 and amid intense, if belated interest on the part of Korean viewers in the audition-show format. Early 2011 saw the arrival of the first of a seemingly endless string of reality TV-style singing competitions ranging from Korea’s Got Talent, a localised version of the British stalwart, to homegrown knock-offs with titles like KPop Star, MBC Star Audition, New Recruit, Top Band and I Am a Singer.
The latter, a production of MBC, is among an increasing number of made-in-Korea offerings – others include variety-road show hybrid 1 Night, 2 Days from KBS and Infinite Challenge from MBC – that have drawn interest from foreign buyers. The arrival of new, potentially export-ready formats comes at a convenient time for Korean broadcasters, given that previously booming sales of historical dramas and modern soap operas in Asia have begun to level off.
“Viewers in Asia are still showing a lot of Interest in Korean TV dramas but it’s hard to expect an increase in sales in these markets,” said Ja-young Byun, broadcast marketing manager at KOCCA (Korea Creative Content Agency). “Part of the reason for that is quota and to some extent, sentiment against Korean content; though there is work being done to overcome these obstacles. For these reasons, there has been increasing attention paid to reaching more markets in Europe and South America where Korean programming has already seen some success.”
Selling the right to remake Korean dramas, shopping around existing reality-show formats to capitalise on still-growing global interest in K-pop and innovating new formats are among the other strategies Korean content producers are looking at in their efforts to keep the momentum going for Hallyu.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest in our shows internationally,” said Alex Oe, International Content Sales Manager for CJ E&M. “At MIPTV, we had discussions about Comedy Big League, a competition for comedians that has some elements of Saturday Night Live, and a show called Track Down My Ex-Boyfriend, whose concept is pretty simple to grasp. I think reality shows with a differentiated style to them can work in overseas markets. Formats are an exciting new opportunity.”
Technology
Even as Korean broadcasters explore new markets for their programmes, they continue to pioneer fresh ways of making this content available to viewers. With the IPTV-era in Korea set to mark its fourth anniversary in November – dating to Korea Telecom’s 2008 launch of commercial services, which was followed two months later by SK Telecom and LG Dacom’s market entry – the concept looks to be gaining an increasingly firm foothold. The three providers have so far signed up nearly 5 million consumers, which puts Korea fourth worldwide after France, China and the US in terms of IPTV subscription numbers, and the market is fast expanding. November saw the launch of Sondabak – named after the Korean word for “palm” – touted as the world’s first channel to air original programming exclusively for smartphone users.
Credit has been given to IPTV providers themselves for the speed at which Koreans have embraced the idea of watching TV on smartphones and tablets.
“The rapid growth of this market is driven by the providers’ efforts to offer a wide range of titles and channels and to make available various bundling options to cater for the different tastes of consumers,” said Won-ho Kim, Chairman of KoDiMa (Korean Digital Media Industry Association). “The challenge ahead is to improve distribution and to encourage more subscriber participation by delivering more interactive, real-time programmes.”
In a report issued in early April, Hyundai Securities Telecom Services Analyst Mi-song Kim predicted the addition of 1.5 million IPTV subscribers in Korea this year and impending profitability for the industry, though she cautioned that providers would have to cope with a rapidly changing landscape.
“The smart TV business model, with real-time broadcasting via applications and VOD services, overlaps with that of IPTV,” she said. “And from June, multi-system operators (MSOs) are no longer confined to regional boundaries and will be allowed national coverage, just as IPTV operators are… so competition for subscribers looks to intensify.”
A similarly competitive spirit seems to have taken hold industry-wide, with Korea’s increasingly crowded channel line-up, what seems to be a growing trend towards internationalisation and a collective rush to cash in on new technologies creating an atmosphere of intense rivalry that looks unlikely to diminish anytime soon.
