As South Korea celebrates being Country of Honour at the online version of Mipcom this week, Ed Waller casts an eye over the country’s content export figures.

The Masked Singer became an international hit
There’s no denying the impact South Korean programmes and formats have been making on the global market over the past few years. The Good Doctor, The Masked Singer, I Can See Your Voice… The list is quite a long one.
A dive into the data reveals the numbers behind that growth but also some other interesting trends emerging from the Korean Wave that now seems to be lapping on the shores of North America and Europe.
According to data from research outfit The WIT, in 2018 South Korea was responsible for 2.3% of all unscripted formats that were adapted in at least one other country, in joint 10th place alongside Norway.
In 2019 – the year The Masked Singer went global – South Korea climbed to fifth place, accounting for 4.4% of all travelling unscripted formats that year, overtaking Spain, Belgium, Germany, Israel and Sweden along the way. Data up to July this year has South Korea in sixth place with 3.1%, equal with Japan.
Bringing in some data from cultural export agency Kocca, we can see exports of Korean TV content have been on an unsteady rise over the past few years, with a sizeable dip in 2017’s figures after China banned Korean content the previous year.
Total exports of TV content, including formats and DVDs, stood at US$309m in 2013, rose to US$336m in 2014, dipped to US$320 the following year and jumped to US$411.2m for 2016. After the China ban, the figures tumbled to US$362.4m for 2017 then soared to US$478.4m for 2018, the latest year for Kocca data.
Breaking out the data for formats over the same period, the export figures grow from US$3.4m in 2013 to US$8.7m in 2014 then, during the China boom, enjoy a steep rise to US$39m in 2015 and US$54.9m in 2016, before dropping to US$8.8m and US$9.9m for 2017 and 2019 after the fall-out with Beijing.
The Kocca data shows the exporters of K-content are also changing. Back in 2016, export figures were dominated by the distribution arms of terrestrial broadcasters MBC, KBS and SBS. In 2016, for example, the terrestrials accounted for US$278.5m (67.7%) of the total US$411.2m broadcast content exports for that year. The following year, that figure had fallen to US$174.4m (48.1%) of the US$362.4m total, and by 2018 it was US$171.3m (35.8%) of the US$478.4m total.
By contrast, export figures for the cable and satellite firms such as CJ ENM and JTBC spiked. In 2016, this sector accounted for just US$68.8m (16.7%) of total broadcast content exports, rising to US$111.2m (30.6%) in 2017. By 2018, the figure had jumped to US$155.5m (32.5%), reversing the decline of the terrestrials.
Another trend is revealed by the data: the growth of the indie TV prodco. A few Korean prodcos, such as Pan Entertainment, have been able to retain rights to their content and are doing international deals themselves.
In 2016, these indie prodcos accounted for US$63.9m (15.5%) of total broadcast content exports, with that figure rising to US$76.8m (21.2%) in 2017 and leaping to US$151.6m (31.7%) in 2018. South Korean non-terrestrials and indie prodcos seem to be on a growth curve in content exports at the expense of terrestrials.
The decline in terrestrial exports can be partly explained by the China ban but also perhaps because the international market wants the kind of content produced by the relatively regulation-free cabsat companies.
It’s also worth pointing out that the Kocca data is from before The Masked Singer went global so the figures for 2019 will skew towards the terrestrials since that show is from MBC.