Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light, though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning they, do not go gentle into that good night.
Korea turns to AI to drive next phase of global media expansion
Promotional posters for the Korean television dramas "Stove League," left, "Extracurricular," center, and "Kkondae Intern," are displayed in a composite layout. The series anchored a highly competitive domestic broadcast slate, driven by a mix of veteran lead actors and breakout creative talent. Yonhap
By Jhoo Dong-chan
The global expansion of television has long faced a stubborn linguistic barrier: the immense cost and time required to dub programming into local languages. Now, the Korean government is betting on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) to eliminate that friction, aiming to beam thousands of hours of Korea's cultural exports directly into foreign living rooms at a fraction of traditional production costs.
The Ministry of Science and ICT convened a high-level summit of the "Global K-FAST Alliance" in Seoul, Thursday, to aggressively scale an initiative that blends generative AI with Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) — a rapidly growing global market projected to reach $23 billion by 2030.
By using what industry insiders call an "AI Dubbing Agent," Korean software firms have successfully integrated voice separation, context-aware translation and emotional synthesis. The technology automatically replicates nonverbal cues and performance dynamics from original Korean audio, seamlessly translating and revoicing content into English, Spanish and Portuguese.
The pilot phase has already yielded explosive results.
Over a five-month period ending in April, 20 dedicated AI-dubbed Korean streaming channels drew a cumulative audience of 100 million viewers across 22 countries, primarily distributed via major hardware platforms like Samsung TV Plus and LG Channels in North America, according to the ministry.
To accelerate this momentum, the ministry announced it has expanded its strategic alliance from 22 to 82 participating entities, including broadcasters, platform operators and AI tech companies. The government has selected three major tech consortiums — including Hudson AI and Eastsoft — to deploy four new flagship channels tailored to changing global media consumption habits.
Unlike traditional broadcasting, these new channels will diversify beyond standard soap operas into vertical short-form dramas, K-beauty and K-dance reality shows. The infrastructure will also pioneer interactive commercial features. The short-form drama channel, for instance, will use a "dual-view interface" that optimizes 9:16 vertical video for wide-screen smart televisions, enabling viewers to purchase featured apparel or cosmetics instantly via remote control.
"Localized dubbing has always been the ultimate gatekeeper for foreign content seeking mass audiences," said Shin Hyun-jin, chief executive of Hudson AI. "AI-driven emotional dubbing will drastically shorten the runway for Korean cultural products to capture mainstream global viewers."
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.