Due to stricter government regulations in China and an overall drop in TV viewership, the South Korean TV industry has been changing the way it produces shows while also bringing famous stars back to the small screen.
It was a year of changes for the South Korean TV industry in 2015.
In China, a major market for exported South Korean shows, tightening regulations concerning domestic streaming sites greatly impacted the South Korean TV industry's performance in the market. Meanwhile, the industry was continuing to experience a steady slide in viewership numbers for prime time TV series in South Korea as more young people turned to other forms of entertainment.
To adapt to these changes, starting in the middle of 2015 South Korean TV studios began changing the way they produce and distribute their series, moving from the traditional method of shooting and broadcasting a series after every few episodes to not broadcasting a series until it is shot in its entirety. Additionally, studios have focused more money and effort on bringing in big name stars such as movie stars Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Young-ae and Kim Hye-soo to their shows.
When it comes to content, in addition to producing shows from A-list script writers such as Kim Eun-sook (Secret Garden), Park Hye-ryun (Pinocchio) and So Hyeon-kyeong (Prosecutor Princess), a lot of popular comics and novels are also getting ready for TV adaptations, to include the US drama The Good Wife. Genres are also broadening, ranging from suspense and action shows to vampire and career dramas.
Regulatory impact
In April 2015, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television implemented regulations aimed at streaming sites known as the "Foreign Restriction Decree." According to these regulations, all domestic streaming websites need to obtain a permit to broadcast series. The catch being that all series would need to be reviewed by related government agencies in their entirety before they can be shown.
This basically meant that many South Korean shows could no longer be broadcast simultaneously in South Korea and China since only a portion of a show's episodes would be produced and broadcast at a time. By the time a series could make it to China, it would have already been broadcast in its entirety in South Korea, and as a result Chinese streaming sites would pay less for the broadcast rights.
According to a report from the Beijing News, after The Heirs caused South Korean dramas to become popular again at the end of 2013, broadcast right payments rose to 90,000 yuan ($13,600) per episode from less than 4,000 yuan. In 2014, the popular romance drama You Who Came from the Stars sold for 185,000 yuan per episode, while Pinocchio, which came in at the end of 2014, reached 1.73 million yuan per episode.
However, after regulations came into effect, prices for TV series began to fall. For example, prices for 2015 drama Hyde, Jekyll, Me went from 1.91 million yuan to 636,000 yuan per episode.