Korea Makes the Content. Netflix Keeps the Money: How Regulation Is Hollowing Out Korea’s Own Media Industry

A top Korean media and AI policy expert warns that the country's domestic broadcasting industry is in structural collapse — even as K-content dominates global streaming charts. The problem, he says, is a regulatory system designed for foreign platforms to win.

Squid Game generated an estimated two trillion Korean won for Netflix. BTS's upcoming concert at Seoul's Gwanghwamun Plaza will be streamed live — not by a Korean broadcaster, but by Netflix. K-pop Demon Hunters, a Sony-produced, Netflix-distributed franchise built on Korean cultural IP, carries an estimated brand value of 1.4 trillion won(roughly 1.0 billion dollars). The production fees paid to Korean creators were a fraction of that.

These are not the complaints of an industry outsider. They are the diagnosis of Samseog Ko — a man who spent three decades at the center of Korea's media and communications policy establishment — delivered Monday morning on one of Korea's most influential public radio programs.

"Korea's content influence is on par with Hollywood," Ko said. "We are a content G2. But we have no platform power to back that up, and the policy framework is failing the industry at every level."

Ko, Distinguished Professor at Dongguk University's AI Convergence College and a member of Korea's Presidential Committee on National AI Strategy, was speaking on BBS — the Buddhist Broadcasting System — on its flagship morning current-affairs program, "Geum Tae-seop's Morning Journal."

His verdict: the country that gave the world Squid Game and BTS is watching its own broadcasting ecosystem quietly die, and almost nobody in authority is focused on the right problem.

The Numbers Behind the Paradox

The contradiction Ko laid out for BBS listeners is visible in the data. Korean terrestrial broadcasters' advertising revenue has fallen below two trillion won annually for the first time on record — roughly half of what it was a decade ago. The film industry has been hit even harder: Korea produced 120 to 130 films per year before the pandemic. By 2024, that figure had dropped to approximately 30. By 2025, it is on track for around 20. In under three years, the industry lost more than 80 percent of its output.

All of this has happened while Korean cultural exports have reached historic heights. Ko invoked a Chinese phrase to describe the gap: "outer splendor, inner poverty." Korea's creative output commands global admiration and premium streaming real estate. The economic value it generates accumulates largely elsewhere.

"We do all the work," Ko told host Geum Tae-seop. "Someone else takes the money."

The mechanism is a reinforcing spiral that Ko described as a breakdown in what he called the industry's "base fitness." Falling viewership reduces advertising revenue. Reduced advertising revenue forces cuts in content investment. Weaker content investments produce less competitive programming. Less competitive programming accelerates the flight of viewers to global OTT platforms. Repeat.

A Regulatory System That Favors Foreign Platforms

Ko identified the legal architecture as the primary driver of the collapse.

Under Korean law, Netflix and YouTube are classified as "value-added telecommunications service providers" — a regulatory category that subjects them to minimal content review, no advertising category restrictions, and none of the ownership or cross-investment obligations that apply to domestic broadcasters. Korean terrestrial and cable networks, by contrast, are bound by a dense framework of regulations drafted in an era when satellite television was new and streaming did not exist.

The asymmetry produces stark practical contrasts. "Scenes of drug use and graphic violence appear on OTT platforms without any filter," Ko said on BBS. "On Korean terrestrial TV, they blur out a cigarette." Korean broadcasters are also barred from carrying advertising for medical institutions and law firms — categories that appear freely on internet platforms and even in subway stations. And ownership rules from a prior generation still prohibit conglomerates with assets exceeding ten trillion won from entering the broadcast sector — a rule originally designed to prevent media concentration that today mainly prevents capital from reaching cash-starved broadcasters.

"What is the point of being fair," Ko asked, "if nobody is watching?"

His policy prescription has two components. The first is regulatory rebalancing: if imposing Western-style platform obligations on Netflix and YouTube carries trade-policy complications with Washington — which Ko acknowledged — the minimum response is to lift the asymmetric regulatory burden on Korean operators. He called for relaxing ownership restrictions, cross-media limits, and advertising category controls.

The second component targets the broadcasters least equipped to survive: public-interest and religious stations, with BBS as his primary example. As one of Korea's only nationwide broadcasters with a Buddhist community mandate, BBS serves functions that commercial streaming platforms do not: regional news coverage, minority-faith programming, civic information for audiences outside the algorithmic mainstream. But BBS carries the same regulatory obligations as the major terrestrial networks, without anything close to their advertising base. Ko called for priority allocation of government and public-sector advertising to these broadcasters.

"If we lose them," Ko said on air, "we don't get them back."

The broader argument Ko was making — to BBS's own listeners, on BBS's own airwaves — was pointed: a diverse media ecosystem is not self-sustaining when the regulatory system is structurally biased against the smaller, mission-driven outlets that give it depth.

An Institutional Vacuum at the Worst Moment

The urgency of Ko's critique is compounded by the fact that the government body responsible for broadcasting policy has been non-functional for nearly a year. The Korea Communications and Media Commission — successor to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), where Ko himself previously served as Commissioner at the vice-ministerial level — has been unable to form a working quorum since its establishment. Any substantive legislative or regulatory action requires the body to operate. It cannot.

Ko did not spare the political class. "Government, parliament, and the press are all consumed by debates over broadcast fairness and political neutrality," he said. Those debates, he conceded, are not without merit — questions of editorial independence and media ownership have genuine democratic stakes in Korea. But they have crowded out the structural economic conversation the industry actually needs.

"The reforms that already have broad social consensus — ownership deregulation, advertising liberalization — need to be legislated now," Ko said. "Before the ecosystem is too damaged to recover."

AI and Fandom: Two Paths Forward

Ko, who sits on Korea's highest advisory body for AI policy, did not frame the interview as a counsel of despair. He pointed to two structural opportunities that could, if seized, begin to reverse the decline.

The first is artificial intelligence.

Ko described AI as already embedded throughout Korea's content production pipeline — used in scriptwriting, visual effects, marketing, and distribution analytics — but argued that tool adoption is not enough. What the industry needs, he said, is systematic integration: retraining workforces, redesigning workflows, and developing the next generation of media professionals who can operate at the intersection of creative production and AI-driven efficiency. He was careful, however, to draw a line. "The emotional connection, the human touch — AI cannot do that yet," Ko said. "The strategy is to protect that creative core while using AI to work faster and smarter around it."

The second is fandom infrastructure.

Ko pointed to the K-pop model as a template: fan communities that have evolved far beyond passive audiences into active co-producers — attending concerts, creating derivative content, making micro-investments, functioning as distributed, self-organizing promotional networks around the world. That model, he argued, needs to be extended deliberately to K-drama and broader Korean culture, and Korean cities need to invest in physical infrastructure to support it: dedicated performance venues, fan experience districts, and the urban planning that makes Seoul a global destination for cultural tourism, not just a production hub.

The picture Ko sketched for BBS listeners was of an industry that has succeeded globally on the strength of its talent and failed domestically on the weakness of its institutions. Korea built a content machine the world cannot stop watching. It never built the regulatory framework, the platform infrastructure, or the institutional capacity to capture the value that machine generates. Foreign platforms stepped into that vacuum. They are not going to step back out voluntarily.

Four things need to happen simultaneously, Ko argued: the regulatory playing field must be leveled between domestic broadcasters and global OTT platforms; religious and regional public-interest broadcasters must receive meaningful financial support before they disappear; the Korea Communications and Media Commission must be restored to functional operation; and the industry must develop a coherent strategy around AI integration and fandom-driven distribution. None of these is sufficient on its own.

"K-content's global success is real," Ko said near the end of the broadcast. "The question is whether the industry that creates it will survive long enough to sustain that success. That is the question Korea's policymakers have yet to answer."

Samseog Ko is Distinguished Professor at the AI Convergence College, Dongguk University; Member, Presidential Committee on National AI Strategy; and Former Commissioner (Vice-Minister level), Korea Communications Commission (KCC).

He spoke on "Geum Tae-seop's Morning Journal," the flagship current-affairs radio program of BBS — Buddhist Broadcasting System, Korea's nationwide public broadcaster — on February 23, 2025.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

BBS — the Buddhist Broadcasting System — is a nationwide South Korean public broadcaster that launched in 1990, operating on FM radio (101.9 MHz in Seoul) and streaming on YouTube. Founded by the Jogye Order, Korea's largest Buddhist denomination, BBS serves both Buddhist communities and the broader general public, covering news, current affairs, and culture. It is one of the few religious broadcasters in Korea with a national terrestrial license.

"Geum Tae-seop's Morning Journal" (금태섭의 아침저널) is BBS's signature morning radio program, broadcast weekdays from 7:20 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. and simultaneously live-streamed on YouTube. The show, which has aired in various forms since BBS's founding, covers politics, economics, and social affairs through news briefings, interviews with senior officials and public figures, and expert commentary.

Its current host, Geum Tae-seop — a former prosecutor, Cornell Law School graduate, and member of South Korea's 20th National Assembly — was appointed anchor in June 2025 to broaden the program's appeal beyond its traditional audience.