Lee Gyu-lee is a business writer at The Korea Times, focusing primarily on IT & telecommunications, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and KOTRA. Prior to this, she has covered a wide range of cultural news, from film, television and K-pop to lifestyle and fashion.
Korea revives push for Media Law reform for streaming-driven market shift
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By Lee Gyu-lee
Regulator seeks to bring broadcasters, OTT platforms under single legal framework
Korea is reigniting long-stalled efforts to overhaul its broadcasting regulations, seeking to establish a comprehensive media law that reflects the rapid rise of streaming-era platforms and brings traditional broadcasting and digital streaming platforms under one regulatory framework.
The Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) is set to hold a roundtable with outside experts on Jan. 19 to discuss the direction for a unified media legal framework. The meeting aims to gather views on how to redesign the regulatory system to better match the current market that has shifted away from digital platform convergence and on-demand viewing.
The initiative, shelved numerous times over the decades due to political disputes and jurisdictional conflicts, is raising expectations for renewed momentum as the media landscape evolves rapidly.
The current Broadcasting Act, enacted in 2000, has largely retained its original form despite a surge of new media types such as internet protocol TV, internet-based streaming and free ad-supported television (FAST).
Despite these new developments, a comprehensive legal framework was missing, leaving new media services to operate under fragmented legal standards with no clear oversight structure.
This has sparked long-standing calls for regulatory reform from traditional broadcasters, which claim they face regulatory disadvantages compared with digital competitors as they remain subject to strict rules while newer platforms operate outside the formal framework.
The envisioned comprehensive law seeks to establish a horizontal regulatory system, applying the same rules consistently across platforms for a fairer and more predictable business environment for all players.
Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) Chairman Kim Jong-cheol speaks during an annual kickoff meeting at Government Complex Gwacheon in Gyeonggi Province, Jan. 2. Courtesy of BMCC
However, the task of merging media-related laws — currently scattered across multiple statutes, including the Broadcasting Act, Internet Multimedia Broadcasting Services Act and Telecommunications Business Act — poses considerable challenges.
Integrating them into a single framework is likely to trigger conflicts of interest among broadcasters, telecom operators and platform companies. There are also concerns that prematurely imposing rules on streaming services, before regulatory principles are fully established, could undermine business predictability.
Another long-standing obstacle is coordinating multiple government ministries, as broadcasting and media oversight is split among the KMCC, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Past reform attempts repeatedly stalled over jurisdictional disputes.
This time, with the ICT ministry’s broadcasting policy functions having been transferred to the communications regulator last year, the push for reform now has a better chance of moving forward with a more streamlined governance structure.
Adding to the momentum, BMCC Chairman Kim Jong-cheol has pledged to modernize regulations, eliminate outdated advertising and programming restrictions, saying this year will be a year of reform.
“Last year, BMCC, which had overseen broadcasting and communications policy for 17 years, was reorganized and relaunched to establish an integrated framework for broadcasting and media policy,” he said during an annual kickoff meeting earlier this month. “It is time to take on a more proactive role than ever and lead a fundamental transformation of the media industry ecosystem.”