At the turn of the century, the Korean government seems to have realised the significant increase in popular cultural content exports to neighbouring Asian countries. The 2001 White Paper on Cultural Policy describes the phenomenon of the Korean Wave as follows: ‘International cultural exchange had been regarded in Korean society as the import of “advanced” Western cultural products and the introduction of “traditional” Korean culture to the West. This changed after the success of the Korean Wave in Asian countries, however, with the international cultural exchange destination shifting to Asia’. (MCT, 2001a: 16)
97
As a result of the presidential election in December 2002, the Kim Dae-jung regime (1998-2002) was succeeded in February 2003by the Noh Moo-hyun regime (2003-2007). It has been said that the Noh regime continued to carry out the cultural policies of the Kim Dae-jung administration without significant changes.
Figure 5.2 Korean broadcasting,98 film, and popular music exports between 1998 and 2005 (US$1,000)
Source: White Paper on the Cultural Industries (MCST, 2008: 182, 219)
Prior to the tremendous popularity of Winter Sonata in Japan in 2004, the Kim Dae-jung administration may already have perceived the promising prospects of domestic broadcast programme exports: ‘It is particularly important to nurture the broadcasting programme genres which appeal to overseas markets. To do this, it is necessary to look for those niche markets which major international programme distributors have missed’. (MCT, 2000a: 282) This shows that the government was monitoring the increasing international trade flow in broadcast programmes and may well have hoped to sell Korean dramas to neighbouring countries thanks to the proliferation of cable channels in Chinese-speaking areas such as Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Ironically, the government took no particular interest in the early Korean Wave, which started with drama and dance music exports to Taiwan and China in the late 1990s. More precisely, the government may have been reluctant to acknowledge the value of dramas as a viable export product, rather than entirely failing to recognise their obvious popularity. The statement of the 2000 White Paper on the Cultural Industries shows the government’s dubious response to the increase in drama exports: ‘More diversity in exporting broadcast
98
Dramas have comprised approximately 90 per cent of broadcast programme exports since the early 2000s. In 2005, for example, the proportion of dramas in all Korean broadcast programme exports was 89.7 per cent.
0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000 140,000 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Broadcast programmes Films Popular music
programmes is required because almost all programmes exported have merely been dramas’. (MCT, 2000a: 279)
Initially, the government appears to have considered television animations as the most promising programme genre for export and accordingly focused its subsidies on animation productions (MCT, 2000a: 277). In fact, KBS Media had already attempted animation exports a decade earlier, in the late 1980s, and eventually concluded in the mid 1990s that television animations were not sufficiently competitive as an export product.99 In 1999, the proportions of drama and animation in broadcast programme exports by the three terrestrial stations were 58.2 per cent and 10.6 per cent respectively (ibid.: 278). Nonetheless, in 2003, the government raised the compulsory broadcast quota for the terrestrial broadcasting stations’ domestic animations from 35 per cent in 1999 to 50 per cent (MCT, 2002b: 314).
Although the government seems not to have paid significant attention to the increase in drama exports, that does not mean that it did not support broadcast programme exports at all. Several small-scale measures in support of programme exports were implemented in the late 1990s, in line with the overall broadcasting industry promotion policies. Kim Chang-ho, the Director of MCT’s audiovisual and advertising division, noted that these consisted of supporting post-production and providing foreign language dubbing for broadcast programmes, providing subsidies to programme exporters participating in international programme markets, offering information related to the overseas market, and organising the international television programme market. Support of this kind has continued to the present without any noteworthy change.100
A description of these support measures will be of value. Firstly, ‘post-production support’, also known as ‘music and effect separation support’, is the government subsidy provided for post-production of broadcast programmes intended for export, which began in 1999. In the process of exporting programmes, programme exporters keep music and effects separate from the master tape in order to dub dialogue or music, or to insert the subtitles into the programmes. The separation process has been called ‘post-production’ or ‘M&E (music and effects) separation’.
99
KBS Media’s animation export trials will be explored further in Chapter 7.
100
According to Park Jae-bog, the former General Manager of MBC Productions, in the late 1990s the cost of the post-production process was as high as US$1,000 per sixty-minute drama episode, whereas the export revenue per drama episode remained only US$600. In those times, the broadcasting stations in financial difficulties due to the IMF crisis were not eager to invest in the uncertain future of programme exports. Inevitably, the newly formed broadcast programme export personnel committee asked MCT to provide subsidies for post-production.101 MCT paid subsidies to each broadcasting station and to several large independent production companies which were able to export their dramas from January 1999 onwards (MCT, 2005: 256).
According to the White Paper on Cultural Policy, the government provided subsidies for the post-production of approximately 1,500 programme episodes in 2002 (MCT, 2002a: 351). In interviews, the export personnel of three broadcasting stations, including Kim Young-won, General Director of SBS Contents Hub, Park In-soo, head of the programme export team at KBS Media and Park Jae-bog, former General Manager of MBC Productions, described post-production support as the most consistent and effective form of government support for drama exports.
Secondly, since 1995, the government has provided subsidies to broadcasters who wish to participate in certain renowned international broadcast programme markets. This has been called support for participation in the international broadcast programme market, or, for short, ‘market participation support’. The 2005 White Paper on the Cultural Industries stated: ‘the government has provided a subsidy for domestic broadcasters to participate in prominent international programme markets such as MIP-TV [Marché International des Programmes de Télévision], MIP-COM [Marché International des Films et des Programmes pour la TV, la Vidéo, le Câble et le Satellite], and the Shanghai International Television Festival. In detail, the government provides financial support for such expenses as renting a booth for the Korean television programme exhibition and printing brochures introducing Korean television programmes. In doing so, the government aims to enhance and promote domestic programme exports in the international market’. (MCT, 2005: 395) Senior KOCCA researcher Yoon Jae-sik suggested that this had been described as a
101
Interview with Park Jae-bog, former General Manager of MBC Productions, 25th July 2010 in Seoul, Korea. Park has been described as a key figure engaged in broadcast programme exports from the early 1990s with Park In-soo of KBS Media. Park was honoured with an award by the Korean president in 2001 for his contribution to broadcast programme exports.
practical boost not only for broadcasting stations, but also for small independent productions which are not affluent enough to participate in the overseas market.102
Thirdly, since 2002, the government has sponsored the Broadcasting Worldwide Exhibition and Conference (henceforth BCWW), the annual broadcast programme market held in Korea. The first BCWW was organised in 2001 by Group Eight, a venture company managed by drama export agent Song Byung-joon. Song stated that he realised the necessity for a broadcast programme market dealing predominantly with Asian programmes in order to manage the increasing trade among Asian broadcasters, while he was working in the late 1990s as the agent exporting Korean dramas to Taiwanese cable channels:
MCT showed an interest in the first BCWW held in 2001 and provided a subsidy. The next year, MCT and KOCCA provided BCWW’s entire budget. Although BCWW itself has not been a profitable business, it is widely believed that BCWW became the representative market for exporting Korean broadcast programmes as well as playing a key role in maintaining the high popularity of Korean dramas in the Asian market. Asian broadcasters generally regard Korea as the Asian centre of drama exports because the Korean broadcasting industry has high quality dramas and is the leading broadcast programme trade market for Asian broadcasters. Following the success of BCWW, a couple of similar programme markets have appeared in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand.103
Table 5.2 Government subsidies for broadcast programme exports (US$1,000)
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Post-production 667 N/A 667 641 811
Market participation support 166 N/A 416 394 394
Organisation of BCWW 416 833 416 416 583
Source: Strategies and policies for the proliferation of the Korean Wave (KOCCA, 2009b: 78)
102
Interview with Yoon Jae-sik, 20th July 2010 in Seoul, Korea. Yoon has been researching the export performances of domestic broadcast programmes at KOCCA since the early 2000s.
103
Interview with Song Byung-joon, on 3 August 2010, in Seoul, Korea. Song Byung-joon, who was a drama music composer and actor in the early 1990s, became an influential drama export agent leading the boom of early drama exports to Taiwan in the late 1990s. He is the president of ‘Group Eight’, one of the primary independent drama productions. In 2009, Group Eight produced a miniseries Boys over Flowers, based on a popular Japanese comic Hana yori Dango, and exported it to approximately twenty overseas broadcasting stations.
Figure 5.3 BCWW’s programme sales between 2001 and 2005 (US$1,000)
Source: Strategies and policies for the proliferation of the Korean Wave (KOCCA, 2009b: 87)
It should be noted that all of these supporting measures are small-scale and focus on overall broadcast programme exports rather than on drama exports. More importantly, it should be pointed out that this kind of support had already started at some point between 1995 and 2002. Even after the government’s full recognition of the popularity of Korean dramas in overseas markets, triggered by the unanticipated popularity of Winter Sonata in 2004, these support measures were not remarkably changed or expanded, as Table 5.2 shows.
In this respect, the government’s apparently indifferent attitude to the rapid growth of drama exports is obviously inconsistent with its long-term enthusiasm for the export success of cultural industries products since the beginning of the Kim Dae-jung regime. It is likely that the government has been reluctant to increase its support for drama exports, despite their great popularity among Asian audiences, for two key reasons. This study will next analyse the Korean government’s reluctance to support drama exports in a historical context.