Seoul Economic Network TV, Bloomberg Form Partnership
By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter
Korean viewers will soon be able to get investment advice from leading Wall Street analysts and watch the latest global news from a major U.S. financial news channel, all dubbed in Korean language.
It's part of a new partnership signed between Korea's Seoul Economic Network (SEN) and U.S.-headquartered financial news channel Bloomberg Television. SEN is a television news unit of Seoul Economic Daily, a sister publication of The Korea Times.
According to the partnership agreement signed Tuesday, SEN will serve as an exclusive carrier of Bloomberg TV programs that are translated into Korean. SEN will add Korean dubbing and subtitles to major Bloomberg programs and carry them on SEN's Korean cable channel.
These programs will start airing sometime in the latter half of this year. SEN also plans to offer translated Bloomberg programs on ``Skylife'' satellite channel and IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) as well as through Seoul Economic Daily's homepage on the Web.
SEN and Bloomberg TV will also work together on marketing and public relations efforts in the Korean market.
The U.S.-based Bloomberg TV is aiming to win over new viewers in Korea by offering Korean-dubbed programs on a local cable channel. On the other hand, SEN will get access to global news programs produced by Bloomberg to complement its domestic Korean news programs. SEN has recently enhanced its broadcasting capability by building a new studio capable of transmitting High-Definition (HD) quality pictures.
Bloomberg TV, part of Bloomberg News, is a 24-hour news channel. It currently reaches more than 200 million homes worldwide via 11 networks in seven languages.
Jimmy Kim, Bloomberg TV's vice president for the Asia Pacific region, said Bloomberg's global resources can offer in-dept financial and business analysis. He added the new Korean-dubbed Bloomberg programs could help Korean viewers gain a more globalized economic perspective.
``SEN has the domestic news-gathering resources from its parent Seoul Economic Daily, which is a top-rated business newspaper in Korea. Now with this partnership with Bloomberg TV, SEN aims to offer more globalized news to Korean viewers,'' said Im Jong-kon, president of SEN and Seoul Economic Daily.