Mark James Russell

Books, blog and other blather

Category: Korea media

Big TV’s Big Shakeup

January 4, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Wow, it finally happened. After years of rumors, Orion has finally sold its On Media cable TV channels. And not only did they sell On Media, but they sold it to arch-rival CJ. I really am amazed.

For years, On Media was the dominant cable TV channel group in Korea (the industry jargon is “Program Providers”). After cable TV was launched in Korea in 1995, it was much more a whimper than a force for several years. But gradually On Media grew, starting with Tooniverse, and adding music, movie and other channels (including HBO briefly, and of course the mandatory baduk channel). Soon after the turn of the century, the American program Friends made a huge splash in Korea (which On Media did not have), followed by Sex & the City (which it did) and CSI (On Media, too), and soon cable TV was a big deal. Soon, On Media was by far the biggest Program Provider in Korea (at one point accounting for nearly 50 percent of all cable TV watching).

Then CJ decided to add cable TV to its growing list of entertainment and media companies. After a few missteps, it was running neck and neck with On Media, which has been the situation for the past several years.

But strangely, despite On Media’s success, there have always been strong rumors that parent company Orion wanted to sell it. Rumor has it that the Orion bigwigs did not like being involved in the entertainment industry, considering it too unstable and too different from the company’s core businesses. For a couple of years, there were supposedly serious talks going on between Orion and KT. At one point, a contact of mine even told me it was a done deal. But obviously that never happened.

Then Orion sold off its movie exhibition company, Megabox, so there was something to the rumors. And then the company closed its newly opened production company, Motion 101. And about a year ago, people started to mention CJ as a serious suitor for On Media.

What will it mean for the Korean entertainment industry? Fierce competition between CJ and On Media has helped to boost prices paid for top programs to ridiculous levels. I assume that is going to cool off now (at least until someone else comes along… there is always another challenger to the throne). I assume, too, that CJ is going to start closing some of the overlapping channels, or at least changing some formats.

But my biggest worry is that this deal with further retard the development of original programming on cable TV. Much as cable in the United States has become the source of much of the best storytelling these days (Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, etc.), I think Korea needs cable TV to step up and become a player. When On Media produced Bong Man-dae’s erotic series DONGSANG IMONG, I had hope that they were going to become something like HBO. Sadly, rather than take the best elements of that series and develop them, cable TV instead chose to focus on the sex, and have instead made endless unwatchable ero-dramas. Sigh.

I do not see the CJ-On Media deal making things any better… But who knows? Maybe this will embolden CJ to start producing something with substance.

Yongsan Crackdown?

April 12, 2007 / / 8 Comments

Had a bit of a surprise when I went to Yongsan Electronics Market today. When I walked down the main road, where all the pirate DVD vendors are, I discovered a distinct lack of pirate vendors. Instead, I found this:

(Sorry for the crappy quality… I only had my mobile phone camera with me)

There were no vendors at all on the street. Not anyone selling anything. Instead, they were playing that familiar Korean protest music and sitting on aluminum foil mats, protesting.

From what I can gather, a private company, Najin Industries, has taken control of the street vendor racket in Yongsan, and has given the boot to all the black market merchants who used to line the road. The DVD pirates were, of course, not taking this lying down. Well, they were lying down on their mats, but they were not going without a fight. They put up posters on the new vendor stalls, voicing their rage.

Fast crappy translation:
“Street Vendors of Iron”
Under flag of the national street vendor association, come together and fight through blood and sweat to get our things back. Only by getting together can we live….
Ugh. It repeats the same silliness over and over.

Hey, it’s the street vendor liberation song! You will have to imagine the martial tunes blaring on the loudspeakers, but here are their heartfelt words:
1) The more we are stepped on, the more we will stand up. We are fighting street vendors.
2) Even the if government will try to kill us, a million street vendors will march forward together.
Chorus: We will not retreat, to be human. We will get back all the disrespect at once.
Ahhhh. A million street vendors’ brothers, the promise we made, let’s win liberation.

And we had this handwritten sign:

“We’ve been here 10 years. We’re very poor, barely able to get by. As a father of my family, for 10 years, Najin Industries has been oppressing us, so we have nowhere else to go. We have to fight. Najin Industries has been lying to street vendors and they tried to make a fight between store vendors and street vendors. Najin Industries should receive our challenge.

“Najin should immediately stop removing the street vendors without offering alternatives. Guarantee our lives. Najin should be responsible for where we stay.”

Okay, I told you my paraphrase was fast, loose and crappy. But the original material is not going to win any poetry awards either. From the department of redundancy department.

There is something pretty special about so much self-righteousness coming from people whose entire livelihoods are built on stealing intellectual property.

So what does this all mean? Is Korea finally getting serious about cracking down on piracy? Nothing would make me happier if that were the case. Getting serious about combating pirate bootlegs would do more to help the local media business than any number of screen quotas or government-sponsored investment funds. However, a quick walk through the basement of the building right next store to the demonstrations revealed this:

Yep. plenty of places where you can buy all your usual Japanese anime and American TV shows. So if you need to stock up on your DVD collection, do not worry, there are still plenty of good locations.

Not that I bought any illegal DVDs. No, that would be wrong. Even for the shows that have not been released in Korea but that my girlfriend and I really want to see, that would be wrong.

And in an unrelated note, THE WIRE is the best television show, period. I quite enjoyed watching several episodes of season 2 this evening.

Random Movie Notes – Vol 2, No. 1

January 17, 2007 / / 0 Comments
  • A strange little news story over at Yonhap that did not generate much heat, but which seemed rather ominous to me — South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun told his cabinet on Tuesday to investigate the nation’s news media to see if they are colluding to bad-mouth his policies.

    Yeah, like the media needs to collude to find problems with Roh. It is the media’s fault that Roh has alienated his base on the left, annoyed the right, and been so incredibly useless across the board (albeit with some minor improvements in decreasing corruption). Roh clearly has no idea how the press works, despite four years as president and however many as a public figure. Someone should tell him about catching flies with honey verus vinegar.

    Anyhow, lord knows the Korean press has its problems, but being bullied by the government is the last thing the press needs. Korean media needs more independence from government, not more control. But judging by Roh’s plan to merge TV and telecommunications regulatory agencies, he obviously likes to control everything he can.

  • Funny article in the Korea Times about how Korea’s top advertising queens are flopping on the big screen. As usual, the quality (or lack thereof) of the various films did not get much consideration. Considering how all those actresses (save Kim Tae-hee) have starred in successful movies in the past, it seems strange to me to blame their more recent failures and the actresses’ poor acting abilities. Try taking a lesson from Go Hyun-jung and act in a few small-budget arthouse movies.

    (Which is why I have a bit of a soft spot for Jeon Ji-hyun… who, at the peak of her popularity, starred in THE UNINVITED. Not a good film, but at least she made the attempt).

  • Midnight Eye has its annual Best/Worst-of poll for 2006 movies. Yang Yonghi’s DEAR PYONGYANG made several lists. Bae Doo-na’s LINDA, LINDA, LINDA made a couple. THE HOST even made Tom Mes’s list of best foreign films.
  • Thanks to Jon Pais over at Twitch Film for his kind words when he linked to this week’s box office report.

© 2024 Mark James Russell

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑