National television moves to the region and beyond: South Korean TV drama production with a new cultural act

ABSTRACT

The study examines Korea’s unique television production systems and TV drama production strategies in the context of Korean dramas’ rising international trade along the line with its new governmental act to television industry. In 2006 the government passed a new cultural act specifically to promote TV content production, as an amendment of the Media and Cultural Industry Act. This act specified that media content production could exclusively perform using a special purpose company (SPC) system as a limited periodic firm, upon registration for creating media content only. The transnational Korean dramas using SPC programming grow the dramas’ export value in both production and distribution sectors, in light of divergent transnational media flows. Korea’s dual production system takes advantages of the government’s SPC policy, which simultaneously affects the TV content distribution sectors over the domestic outlets that excel international flows of K-dramas.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational TV flows
• cultural policy
• Korean TV drama production
• special purpose company (SPC)
• Korean Wave
• national television

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Hyejung Ju is an Assistant Professor of Mass Communications at Claflin University. Her research interest is in cultural globalisation, transnational television, and online fandom. She published articles in journals, including Continuum: journal of media & cultural studies, Communication, culture, & critique, and Journal of creative communications. She contributed to chapters for books entitled The Korean Wave: Korean popular culture in global context, as well as Hallyu: Influence of Korean popular culture in Asia and beyond.

Notes

1 The Korean Wave refers to the phenomenal success of Korean media content (e.g., television dramas, variety shows, pop music (K-pop), and movies) across international marketplaces. Starting in the 2000s, Korean media has been distributed to broader global areas and cultural markets that include the Middle East, North and South America, Eastern Europe, and Asia.

2 A cultural discount indicates that the media programs rooted in one culture will have diminished appeal elsewhere in international trade. This is because the viewers find it difficult to identify with the language, styles, values, beliefs, and institutions represented (Iwabuchi 2002, pp. 26–27). It is important to note that foreign programs selected by the local audiences are received using specific local cultural perspectives (Ang 1985; Iwabuchi 2002; Lee 2004; Morley 2006). If the program is produced in a foreign language, its appeal to the audience is likely to be reduced.

3 KBS stands for the Korean Broadcasting System. It is a public TV station established by the government. Two terrestrial TV channels (KBS1 and KBS2), KBS-World radio broadcasting, and web TV operate under this organisation.

4 MBC refers to the MunWha Broadcasting Company. Until the mid-1980s, it was a public TV station established by a non-profit organisation. Afterward, MBC’s ownership changed hands, and it has become a private TV station owned by a few large stockholders.

5 SBS is a private commercial TV station, established in 1991. SBS refers to Seoul Broadcasting System, because initially SBS could cover only Seoul and Gyong-gi province. Nowadays, the company has increased its own affiliates in different provinces, so its broadcast coverage stretches to the entire nation.