By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country's converged regulator for broadcasting and telecommunications, plans to allow national television networks to provide 24-hour programming starting next year.

However, the thought of free, around-the-clock television is alarming for cable networks and other pay-TV operators, who are concerned about sinking viewer ratings and advertising revenue.

In a policy report to President Lee Myung-bak on Monday, the KCC confirmed that it is considering allowing the country's four terrestrial broadcasters ― KBS, MBC, SBS and EBS ― to air programs between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m., a time span they are currently blocked out from.

Since the 1970s, the government had been tightly regulating the broadcasting time of terrestrial networks, who weren't allowed to air programs between 12 a.m. and 4 a.m. on weekdays until 2005.

Although the regulations were originally intended for reducing household energy consumption and maintained after the 1990s to give breathing room to new broadcasting media such as cable, the KCC is now looking to scrap the rules it sees as outdated.

``We will either expand the permitted broadcasting time for national television networks or scrap the regulations as a whole,'' said Kim Jun-sang, an official from KCC's broadcasting policy bureau.

Other planned changes in the television industry for next year include trial services for three-dimensional (3D) television and the expanded use of EBS content at schools, which the government hopes will reduce household spending on private tutoring, the KCC said. EBS specializes in educational programs and documentaries.

Cable television operators are balking at the plans to deregulate the broadcasting time of national networks. The condemnation is shared by newspapers, with many of them looking to extend their leverage to the television business through cable and other pay-TV platforms with the country easing its cross-ownership restrictions on newspapers and television stations.

The pay-TV channels and newspapers claim that expanded programming for terrestrial television will allow the national networks to get a tighter grip on the overall advertising market, while they end up picking up the scraps falling from the table.

The Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo and the Maeil Business Newspaper, three of the country's larger newspapers that have confirmed the aspirations for broadcasting, published articles that raised concerns over KCC's plans in their Monday editions.

``If terrestrial channels are allowed to extend their programming to late night, it will deprive cable channels of their only competitive strength in luring advertisers, which is cost per rating point (CPRP), or the level of media efficiency based on audience rating points,'' said an official from the Korea Cable Television Association (KCTA).

``Unlike the cable television industry, which has been dealing with stalled growth in advertising, terrestrial channels have been enjoying increasing revenue, generated not only from regular programming, but reruns of their programs on different television platforms. There is a danger that cable television channels could be choked out of competition, which will deprive the television industry of energy and diversity in content.''

With more than 15 million households signed up for cable television and telecommunications operators gaining customers for Internet protocol television (IPTV), Korea's pay-TV market has clearly expanded to a point of saturation.

However, the growth of the pay-TV industry has been reliant on content provided by the ``big-three'' terrestrial networks: KBS, MBC and SBS.

A survey of 500 cable television subscribers in Seoul by the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI) found that the viewers usually watch no more than 12 of the 70 or more channels available. Aside from home shopping channels, most of the programs they watched such as dramas, entertainment and sports were the products of the national television stations, essentially retransmissions or reruns of terrestrial programming.

thkim@koreatimes.co.kr