Last Year's Broadcasting Market Size 19.4 Trillion Won... 7.7% Growth Compared to Previous Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] The size of South Korea's broadcasting market reached 19.4016 trillion KRW in broadcasting revenue at the end of last year, showing a 7.7% increase compared to the previous year. While revenues from terrestrial broadcasting, IPTV, and broadcasting channel usage business operators (PP) increased, revenues from cable broadcasting and satellite broadcasting operators decreased.

The Korea Communications Commission announced the results of the "2021 Broadcasting Industry Survey" containing these details on the 29th.

Specifically, the total revenue of terrestrial broadcasting was 3.9931 trillion KRW, an 11.7% increase from the previous year. Among this, advertising revenue recorded 1.211 trillion KRW, growing 20.8% year-on-year. The main factors were the introduction of mid-roll advertisements and increased corporate marketing due to recovery from COVID-19.

The total revenue of paid broadcasting operators was about 7 trillion KRW, a 3.9% increase compared to the previous year. Among these, IPTV revenue increased by 8.2% year-on-year to 4.6368 trillion KRW, comprehensive cable broadcasting operators (SO) decreased by 4.1% to 1.8547 trillion KRW, and satellite broadcasting operators decreased by 2.2% to 521 billion KRW.

PP revenue recorded 7.552 trillion KRW, a 6.8% increase from the previous year. Excluding home shopping, PP revenue was about 3.732 trillion KRW, a 14.4% increase year-on-year. Home shopping PP revenue was recorded at 3.82 trillion KRW, a 0.2% increase compared to the previous year.

The number of paid broadcasting subscribers reached 35.77 million units, a 2.8% increase from the previous year, but the growth rate has been continuously declining since 2016. Among them, IPTV recorded 19.89 million units, a 7.3% increase year-on-year, marking the highest number of units among operator types.

Broadcast program production and purchase costs increased by 4.4% year-on-year to 3.0092 trillion KRW. This increase is analyzed to be due to the resumption of program production that had decreased due to COVID-19.

Last year's program export revenue recorded about 433.23 million USD (approximately 549.5 billion KRW), a decrease of 11.9% compared to the previous year.

The number of workers in the broadcasting sector was 36,592, a 1.5% decrease from the previous year. Among them, terrestrial broadcasting workers numbered 13,670, accounting for 37.3% of the total. Additionally, PP accounted for 17,119 workers (46.8% of the total), and paid broadcasting had 5,803 workers (15.9%).