There are three possible reasons for the decrease in exports of popular culture products from South Korea in the years 2014 and 2015. The first one is that the relationship of Japan and South Korea started worsening in 2012, and it drastically impacted the sales, as Japan is the main market, which led to the second which is the rise of anti-Korean sentiment in the Japanese society. Another problem that occurred in 2014 was the emergence of censorship in prior viewing by the commission in China, which heavily affected the amount of content delivered to the country. These reasons led to issues with sustainability of export growth of popular culture products from Sout Korea as previously it was only increasing. The main issue is that these external factors do not provide many options for the South Korean industry to adapt. Therefore, there is not much that can be done to address these problems.
South Korea exports programs and shows of different genres. Drama is the most popular one, making 79% of content exports. There is a large gap between drama and the second leading genre in exports, which is the variety that makes up 14% of the export (Yungduk, 2017). Other popular genres are variety, animation, documentary, and education. The decrease in exports of drama and variety might be the reason for the overall decline.
There are two methods how popular culture products are exported internationally. Besides selling programs to companies from other countries and them broadcasting the content, there are three big Asian broadcasters that work almost everywhere. Arirang TB, KBS World, and tvN Asia are the key media creation beneficiaries in Asia. Arirang TV was established by the South Korean government and has been broadcasting for over 20 years and providing content almost worldwide (Yungduk, 2017). It is viewed in many households in Europe, the US, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The channel is available in Chinese, English, Japanese, English, Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese and Indonesian. KBS world was established in South Korea as well, and it provides a range of genres including drama and news programs in various languages and with subtitles. tvN Asia is a company from Hong Kong that can be viewed in 10 Asian countries. Most of the company’s programs are related to Korean programs of many categories.
Japan is successful in broadcasting its content not only in Asia but in North America (24%) and Europe (6%) as well. The main genre of Japanese popular culture ine the export is anime, as its popularity grew in recent years. This led to an increase in the attention of international tourists towards visiting Japan. The fact that the number of tourists that came to Japan increased three times, from 8 million people in 2010 to 28 million in 2017, proves that point.
Japan, China, South Korea, and Hong Kong are the key media markets where Asian popular culture products are sold. The main market for Japan is Asia in general, whereas, for South Korea and China, the main consumer of popular culture products is Japan. The export of popular culture serves the cultural spread of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese content, attracts tourists, and creates a cultural and economic flow between these countries. Japan exports 64% to Asia, South Korea exports 35% to Japan and 26% to China, China exports ￥ 351.0145 million to Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, accounting for 94.68% of total exports to Asia (Yungduk, 2017). The economical and cultural flow between these countries is well developed and keeps growing.
Reference
Yungduk, K. (2017) The International Expansion of South Korean Television. 25th JAMCO Online International Symposium.