Category: Korean Television (Page 3 of 3)

A fun look at the year ahead in Korean historical dramas here.

Historical dramas have done quite well on Korean television over the years. Sure, there has been a little ebb and flow, but overall historical dramas have been among the highest-rated shows for around a decade now. Starting with TEARS OF THE DRAGON (1996-8 on KBS) set in the transition period between the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties, the first big historical drama to catch people’s attention. TEARS went from the story of the general Yi Sung-gye, who rose up against the Goryeo Dynasty to become king himself, to Yi’s fifth son Bang-won, to Bang-won’s eldest son, the womanizing Yang-nyeong. Finally Yang-nyeong renounces his crown to become a commoner, leaving the throne to his younger brother Hyo-reong. Hyo-reong then becomes a monk, leaving the throne to his nebbish younger brother Chung-nyeong.

You might have heard of Chung-nyeong by his royal name. Sejong. ‘Tis a little famous in Korea.

Since then there have been too many big historical dramas to count, such as LADIES IN THE PALACE (Yeonin Cheonan, on SBS, 2001-2… which I could swear was once known as WOMEN WHO RULED THE WORLD), EMPEROR OF THE SEA, JEWEL IN THE PALACE, … and of course JUMONG and HWANGJINI airing at the moment.

For a look at 2006’s historical dramas, there is this short Korea Herald story. (Actually, there are better stories, but I so enjoy looking at the Herald’s “premium” content for free…) Anyhow, a bigger story, about JUMONG and future series is here at the Korea Times.

I watch a fair amount of Korean movies and TV each year, and listen to a lot of music… but I would be lying if I said that many TV dramas are very interesting to me. I do hope that this will change, though. I am very happy to see OCN and Home CGV starting to broadcast original dramas. Hopefully this might shake things up, like HBO did to the mainstream networks in the United States in the 1990s. And some of the new generation of production companies are certainly ambitious.

The new Bae Yong-joon series, LEGEND, is going to cost around $40 million for 24 episodes (it was supposed to be $30 million, but has experiences a lot of cost overruns, especially for the sets). For that kind of money, we are getting close to the cost of an American TV series. Hopefully the production values will reflect that, and get more cinematic, less soap-opera-ish.

Oh, the company making LEGEND is also slated to make a 4-volume, 80-part version of CITY HUNTER. There will be four 20-part series, each set in a different city (Seoul, Tokyo, New York and France). The company, SSD, has a lot of good folks working there who are trying to learn from the best TV guys around the world.

For a country with as much broadband Internet as Korea and that watches as much television as Koreans do, you would think that Internet TV would be a natural match. IPTV has been the next big thing in many territories about the world, with 1,300 IPTV channels being broadcast around the world (or so Wikipedia tells me).

South Korea’s IPTV, however, has been stymied for years, thanks to the never-ending turf wars of various government ministries — mostly the Ministry of Information and Communications and the Korean Broadcasting Commission, although the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy has also been involved and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism stepped in recently, further muddying the waters. Since IPTV represents the convergence of several fields (Internet technology plus TV broadcasting, plus telephony, plus who-knows-what-next), each field’s individual regulator and policy body now wants the power over all IPTV.

Also complicating things was the Cable TV industry, which worries that IPTV could put them out of business. Korea’s generally dodgy Cable business has been trying to upgrade its service, moving to HD digital, but last I checked, they were having serious technical problems (standard definition is okay, but HD is not working yet). So rather than get their own house in order and complete with the telecoms for customers, the cable industry has been furiously lobbying the government to prevent IPTV from taking off.

Now why, you might ask, should I care about IPTV? After all, Korean TV networks have streamed content over the Internet for years. But streaming is not the same thing as broadcasting.

IPTV also brings us closer to Triple Play, that converging of TV, Internet and telephone into one single package (even Quadruple Play, if you can combine mobile phones). Instead of having to pay for three separate services, you will just have one company providing all three. Theoretically for a lot less money than the three services cost separately.

Korea’s mighty telecoms have been straining at the bit for years for the chance to move to IPTV. Everyone in Korea already has a mobile phone, and most people have Internet and cable TV, so it has been increasingly hard to find room for growth.

Hanaro Telecom finally got tired of waiting for the government to get its act together and last summer launched HanaTV. Which of course pissed off regulators to no end. But so far HanaTV is just Video on Demand, not full IPTV, and the government can see what is coming, so HanaTV has been left alone. KT has also started IPTV trials.

Finally last month, the government put forward legislation to create a new regulatory body that would combine telecommunications and broadcasting and sort out the whole mess.

Well, be careful of what you wish for. Especially when you have leadership like the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Because the law that Roh is pushing would create a new regulatory body MORE controlled by the president’s office. Under the new bill, the president would appoint all five members of the new regulatory body’s standing committee. This committee would be responsible for, among other things, appointing the presidents of the three public TV stations (KBS, MBC and EBS). Considering how overpoliticized the media already is in Korea, adding more politics to the mix is not a good idea.

In the IPTV age, why is the state involved in controlling broadcasting at all? In the past, the argument was that the airwaves belong to the public, so content should reflect the public good. But IPTV is not constrained by the limits of the open airwaves. You can have hundreds, thousands of Internet-broadcast channels. Year by year, the cable channels are getting better ratings and are posing better competition.

This is not just some abstract, technocratic debate. Koreans have proven, over and over again, that they far prefer receiving their entertainment content over the Internet, rather than buying packaged goods. CD sales have dropped nearly 75% since 2000 (down to barely $100 million), but Internet and mobile phone music sales might have topped $400 million last year (2006 figures are not available yet, but those are the early estimates I have heard). Video game boxes (like Playstation and Xbox) are barely an afterthought compared to Internet gaming. DVD sales never took off in the first place, and have since declined a lot.

The Korean movie industry has been overreliant on theatrical revenue for some time. Over 80% of most movies’ revenue comes from the theaters (in the United States, DVD sales are often bigger than theatrical revenue). And more diverse revenues for TV producers would not hurt either. So IPTV has the potential to be a major boost for movies and TV.

In many ways, the future of the entertainment industry could be linked to this new law. But Roh, once again, has shown himself more concerned with asserting his power and the power of his office rather than taking the steps needed to empower the Korean people and their cultural industries. I do not mean to sound all high-and-mighty or rant too much, but it is so annoying small-minded politicians so intent on mucking things up once again.

(Btw, sorry for not writing much these days. But the book is taking up more and more time these days.)