Renewed TV market may lower bar in content quality

By Kim Tong-hyung

Darwinism will be in action in the media industry this year, with five new cable television stations adding competition to what is already a cut-throat broadcasting scene. And it bears further watching whether survival of the fitness means opening the floodgates for flash-and-trash content.

The government’s ambitious plans for deregulating the country’s media marketplace are now fully underway, with the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) last week allocating new cable television licenses to five major newspapers and Yonhap News, the state-run wire agency.

The Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo, Korea’s three biggest dailies, and the Maeil Economic Daily, the leading local business newspaper, landed the rights to operate comprehensive programming channels, which are to provide original news content on top of entertainment programs, sports broadcasts and documentaries.

These channels will be competing with national open-air broadcasters like KBS, MBC and SBS for viewership and influence in a country where more than 80 percent of households are subscribed to at least one kind of pay-television service.

Yonhap is to operate a news-only cable channel to complement YTN.

The five new cable channels are expected to debut sometime during the latter half of this year.

Allowing newspapers to own and operate broadcasting outlets was a controversial decision by the government, which claimed that giving the green light to the media consolidation was crucial for Korea to groom its own version of media giants like Fox. Perhaps, the more important question is whether the country needs one.

It’s debatable whether the television industry has room for five more players, and critics say that the increased competition for advertisers between the broadcasters likely means that the boundaries between reporting and profit will continue to blur on the Korean journalism scene.

The immediate winners of the reshaped television industry would be entertainers, particularly the emcees and comedians, as the comprehensive channels will be racing to acquire a larger lineup of stars. There are also worries that sex, violence and profanity are likely to become increasing problems for Korean television as the networks ferociously compete for living-room attention.

Aside from the three major terrestrial networks KBS, MBC and SBS, there are currently around 190 pay-television outlets close to sucking dry an annual 7.5 trillion won (about $6.7 billion) advertisement market.

For the four new comprehensive channels to survive, each network must secure advertising revenue of around 500 billion won per year, according to industry observers. But it remains to be seen whether the market can squeeze an additional 2 trillion won from advertisers, especially in an economy that is so dependent on exports.

And further complicating matters is KCC’s plans to allow terrestrial television channels to multicast, which could increase the number of land-based channels to 18.

“If the industry fails to create this new 2 trillion won market, only one or two out of the four comprehensive channels would survive, and that is only if the government raises television license fees and has KBS give up on its advertisement business,” said Lee Ki-woo, an Inha University law professor and member of the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice.

“There are concerns over the rise of sex and violent content and even ‘blackmail’ journalism as the media outlets attempt to force the companies to dish out more advertisements. Allowing Yonhap News, the state-run news agency that needs to maintain its neutrality, to dabble with broadcasting could also deteriorate the Korean journalism scene for everyone involved.”

The sense of urgency is even more evident among smaller newspapers that had no prayer of participating in the media grab, as advertisers are likely to reduce their spending on dead-tree outlets first to enlarge their budgets for broadcasters.

The rise of Web-based media outlets and the explosion in the sales of portable Internet devices like smartphones and touch-screen computers, commonly called tablets, is also expected to cut into the advertisement revenue of newspapers.

The Korea Advertisement Association (KAA) said that nearly 52 percent of its member companies said they plan to spend less on newspapers this year in a recent poll.

News organizations here had been contesting for the newly-opened television spots since 2009, when the government lifted the country’s traditional cross-ownership ban that prevented one corporation from owning newspapers and television channels at the same time.

Critics raised concerns that the compromised diversity in the ownership of news organizations could hurt discourse, especially at a time when the line between profit and reporting is becoming blurry in a toughening environment for the print media.

The government contends that deregulation is crucial for the growth of the media industry and the emergence of globally-competitive players that can hold their own against international players.