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JTBC files for court receivership as costly World Cup, Olympics deals push JoongAng Group into crisis
JoongAng Group Vice Chairman Hong Jeong-do speaks during a press conference over a liquidity crisis affecting its subsidiaries and affiliates at the group's headquarters in Mapo District, Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
By Park Ung
Court freezes assets of 5 subsidiaries after $500 mil. purchase of sports broadcasting rights
A court froze the assets of five JoongAng Group subsidiaries and affiliates, Monday, after they filed for court receivership amid a financial crisis driven largely by the Korean media conglomerate's costly bids for exclusive broadcasting rights to major international sporting events.
The Seoul Bankruptcy Court issued preservative measures and a general prohibition order against JoongAng Holdings, the group's parent company, as well as JTBC, Contentree JoongAng, Megabox JoongAng and JoongAng P&I. The JoongAng, the group's flagship newspaper, is said to pursue a restructuring workout process following the rehabilitation filings by the parent company and its affiliates.
The preservative measures bar the companies from disposing of assets or making preferential repayments before formal rehabilitation proceedings, while the general prohibition order freezes creditor claims, blocking enforcement actions, attachments or auctions until then.
Last week, JTBC defaulted after failing to repay a 20.6 billion won ($13.6 million) debt coming due, citing a sharp contraction in the television advertising market amid viewers' rapidly shift to digital and streaming platforms.
On Sunday, JoongAng Holdings, Contentree JoongAng, JoongAng P&I and Megabox JoongAng filed for court receivership, with JTBC doing the same the following day. Shortly after, NICE Investors Service downgraded JTBC's senior unsecured bonds to “D” from “CCC” and its commercial paper and electronic short-term bonds to “D” from “C.”
“We did our utmost to ensure management stability, but various factors have made this inevitable, including deteriorating external economic conditions and a liquidity crunch brought on by credit rating downgrades,” JoongAng Group Vice Chairman Hong Jeong-do said at a press conference Monday, apologizing to creditors and shareholders and pledging to make restoring their losses his top priority.
Hong Seok-hyun, the chairman of JoongAng Holdings / Korea Times file
Central to the group's financial troubles are costly deals to secure exclusive broadcasting rights to major sporting events.
The group paid a combined $500 million — approximately 700 billion won at the time — for rights to broadcast the Olympics from 2026 through 2032 and the FIFA World Cup through 2030. It then sought to recoup those costs by sublicensing them to Korea's three major terrestrial broadcasters. KBS, MBC and SBS, however, contested the fees as unreasonable and out of step with industry practice, leaving negotiations deadlocked.
Major sporting event rights in Korea have traditionally been acquired jointly through a consortium of the three major broadcasters to curb fee inflation and ensure universal viewing access. In 2019, JTBC departed from that arrangement, negotiating directly with the International Olympic Committee for exclusive rights, but the strategy has not unfolded as planned.
Talks with the three broadcasters broke down over the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics earlier this year, leaving JTBC as the only one to air the Games. For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, it managed to sell the broadcasting rights to KBS for only 14 billion won.
The early returns from the World Cup broadcast have also raised questions about the strategy's commercial viability. Despite JTBC securing rights at a much higher combined rate, KBS drew higher viewership ratings for the tournament's opening matches, while 4.82 million users simultaneously streamed games through Naver, which acquired exclusive broadcasting rights for new media in Korea — underscoring how audiences have shifted toward digital platforms even for major live events.
Park Chang-hee, the publisher of The JoongAng / Korea Times file
Despite the turmoil, JTBC's broadcast of World Cup games is expected to proceed as normal. Hong pledged that World Cup broadcasts and other core operations would continue without interruption.
Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) Chairman Kim Jong-cheol said in his assessment that the situation amounted to a liquidity crisis and had not yet directly affected broadcast operations.
The fallout is also expected to reach investors in the group. SLL JoongAng, its content production unit, did not file for corporate rehabilitation but attracted pre-IPO investors including Aceville, an affiliate of Chinese tech giant Tencent, which poured 100 billion won into the company in 2021.
JTBC's broadcasting license could also be at risk. Kim said the regulator was closely monitoring the situation. “As the reapproval process includes evaluations of financial and technical areas, we will be paying close attention to those,” he said.
General programming cable channels in Korea are subject to periodic reapproval by the KMCC, with evaluations covering programming quality, scheduling, financial soundness and regulatory compliance.