The Collapse of the Oligopoly:

Survival Strategy of KBS's TV Shows

Photo for The Collapse of the Oligopoly:

Photo: KBS. Used with permission of KBS.

Eui Kyoung Hwang, Chief Producer at Drama Department, Korea Broadcasting System


Tuesday, April 5, 2016
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
10383 Bunche Hall


Recently, the TV shows of major Korean Ground-wave networks have been facing a serious crisis due to the collapse of the oligopoly. Over the past couple of decades, Korea's major TV broadcasting stations such as KBS, MBC, and SBS have dominated the market in Korea, and have had an absolute cultural influence along with contents revenues. A growing variety of platforms allows people to watch television programs on the Internet, and is causing the existing oligopolistic structure of the contents market to crumble. In particular, younger viewers use services of different contents providers that supply high-quality streaming. Moreover, TV dramas on Korean cable networks, such as CJ TVN, JTBC, etc., are showing remarkable improvement in quality of contents. Another concern is the lack of TV shows’ genre-diversity and self-similar property. Korean TV dramas are often largely embedded with cultural stereotypes and excessive bias of specific genres (namely family and romance). Many of Korean networks’ TV shows are in desperate need of innovative transformation to survive the current upheaval of the contents market.

Lecture will be in Korean.

This event is exclusive to CKS Visiting Scholars, graduate/undergraduate students, and faculty.


Cost : Free

Sponsor(s): Center for Korean Studies

Asia Pacific Center

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