Impact of Regulations on Korean Broadcasting Market and Implications on the Future FTA

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Abstract

Impact of Regulations on Korean Broadcasting Market and Implication on the Future FTA: A Case Study on US, UK and Japan

Haley Cha
International Cooperation
Graduate School of International Studies
Seoul National University

Korea broadcasting is now an emerging market, lucrative in global business. Korea is ranked world number three as the exporter of broadcasting contents after United States and United Kingdom, followed by Japan, based on year 2015 according to the study by Japanese Ministry. Far from the past where government had to implement various foreign quotas to protect the domestic business, now Korea has attained the sustainable status to act as an aggressive exporter in this field.

However, the vestige of past regulations to control influx of foreign capital still remains now. There are mainly two regulations being applied to foreign business entities. “Ownership Cap for foreigner” and “Programming Quota for domestic content”. Firstly, foreigners or any entities that widely defined as foreign can’t own shares of broadcasting business property in excess of certain ratio from the total amount. This is to protect the domestic business from dominance of foreign capital. Secondly, from the total programming hours of domestic broadcasting system, certain ratio of programming hours must be allocated to the domestically-produced contents. This is also to protect the domestic market so that it achieve proper competitiveness before it is pushed out of the business. Korean government has made effort to gradually alleviate the regulation for recent 20 years. But there still lies the need to find out whether the current regulations are posed at appropriate level compared to the global standard.

Therefore this paper examines the regulations of three other countries which are United States, United Kingdom, and then Japan. Even though Korea has lifted many regulations so far, it is noticeable that neighboring countries has clearly lower guard to their domestic market. Also this paper concludes with implication for Korea regarding the future FTA.

Keywords: Broadcasting, Regulation, Ownership Cap of Foreigner, Programming Quota for Domestic Content, FTA
Student ID: 2014-24212

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. Introduction 1
• 1. Background 1
• 1.1 Korean Broadcasting Business, ever Competitive 1
• 1.2 FTA of Korea, in amid Global Trend 2
• 2. Research Question and Purpose of the Study 3
• Ⅱ. Broadcasting Regulations on Foreigner 5
• 1. Ownership Cap of Foreigner 5
• 2. Programming Quota for Domestic Content 5
• Ⅲ. Analysis of Korean Broadcasting Market 6
• 1. Broadcasting Market 6
• 1.1. Terrestrial Broadcasting Business 7
• 1.2. CATV Broadcasting Business 7
• 1.3. Satellite Broadcasting Business 7
• 2. Regulations 7
• 2.1. Ownership Cap of Foreigner 7
• 2.1.1. Current Rule 7
• 2.1.2. Change of the Rule 9
• 2.2. Programming Quota for Domestic Content 11
• 2.2.1. Current Rule 11
• 2.2.2. Change of the Rule 13
• Ⅳ. Analysis of United States Broadcasting Market 16
• 1. Broadcasting Market 16
• 2. Regulations 17
• Ⅴ. Analysis of United Kingdom Broadcasting Market 23
• 1. Broadcasting Market 23
• 2. Regulations 24
• Ⅵ. Analysis of Japanese Broadcasting Market 28
• 1. Broadcasting Market 28
• 2. Regulations 29
• Ⅶ. Findings and Conclusion 33
• Ⅷ. References 37