Broadcasting sector boom in Korea
NEW DELHI: The broadcasting sector in Korea accounted for over 40 per cent of the total turnover of the culture industry in 2004, an industry that covers diverse fields like films, games and animation.
In India currently to push Korean TV software at the two-day TV Korea Showcase in Delhi, the major Korean broadcasters, represented by giants KBS, MBC and SBS, are upbeat about their products being lapped up by both government-owned Doordarshan and satellite channels.
Korean television has been seeing an upswing in homegrown software as against US imports since the late 1990s, registering an annual growth rate of 21 per cent.
Terrestrial television continues to enjoy the lion's share with a 49.7 per cent viewing share, with cable TV following with a 48.2 per cent share, and the growing satellite TV with just a 2.1 per cent share.
16.5 million of a total 48 million population of Korea are hooked to television, with a single platform operator Skylife that has just launched on satellite. Skylife, started in 2000 by a consortium of broadcasters and newspaper companies, currently has over 1.3 million subscribing households.
In-house production by broadcasters though has shrunk, says Korean Broadcasting Institute's senior researcher Ik Hee Kang from $ 926 million to $ 805 million from 2003 to 2004. Production of TV software by the independent sector has increased in the last two years from $ 182 million to $ 229 million.
