Pay-TV policies

Regulation

Regulation by the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) and the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning is becoming increasingly complex as pay-TV itself diversifies, with the onslaught of new technology. Copyright laws provide strong protection with significant penalties. Online piracy is still a major problem in South Korea, similar to other countries. Piracy competes with pay-TV, but the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has utilised its site blocking powers against infringing offshore websites, as permitted by Korean copyright law. Acrimonious disputes over “retransmission consent” of FTA channels have resulted in government intervention.

Regulation of OTT services

A self-regulatory system is in place to apply to advertising on the OTTTV services. Advertising rules, local content quotas, general content rules, age rating and content-sharing rules should apply for-profit OTT services, although not tested to date. The law does not distinguish between local and offshore services and the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) may block any non-complying offshore services.

Content regulation

A self-regulatory approach is also evident to content regulation by pay- TV operators, with supervision and standard-setting by the KCC. Broadcasting operators must display age ratings for programmes, which are determined by the KCC, during broadcast of the programme. Local pay-TV producers are responsible for inserting the age ratings into foreign programming.