By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
KT head Lee Suk-chae says he wants to make his company more like Apple. This has the Korean telecommunications giant declaring it will do for broadband television what Apple did for mobile phones and handheld computing devices.
KT, the country's biggest telephone company and broadband Internet provider, says it's planning to launch a more ``open'' version of its Internet protocol television (IPTV) in March, providing a platform for content developers to create and market their products over KT's broadcasting network.
KT is the biggest of the country's three IPTV operators, the others being SK Broadband and LG Telecom, and hopes that establishing a stronger developer network for the television content will help it cement its IPTV leadership and create new revenue models.
The company is planning a conference for content developers sometime during this month.
Although KT officials aren't ready to discuss any details, they say there will be a focus on openness, allowing any company or content developer to sell their programs on KT's IPTV network.
However, KT will also strengthen the monitoring of the content and establish a reviewing process to restrict the distribution of violent and sexually explicit content.
The company is in talks with content developers on the structure of revenue sharing, although it claims that content developers will be getting a generous cut.
``Building a viable content ecosystem will be critical for IPTV to realize its full potential as an interactive, next-generation source of entertainment and information. So what KT decides to do will be worth watching," said an official from the Korea Communication Commission's (KCC) convergence policy bureau.
IPTV, or the delivery of television services over broadband networks, provides viewers with a wealth of interactive features, including video-on-demand (VOD), e-commerce and other data services on top of conventional television programming.
The three IPTV operators combine to garner just over 2 million viewers, with KT currently controlling about half of them. KT plans to increase the number of its IPTV viewers to 2 million by the end of the year.
Although things have been picking up for KT and other operators in recent months, the IPTV market has been growing slower than expected, with viewers complaining about paying the premium for services that lack content.
Establishing a strong developer network appears critical for the IPTV operators to reduce their reliance on retransmitted national television and offer a larger variety of interactive, data-enabled content.