Conflicting Interests Among Ministries... OTT Self-Rating System Still Far From Completion

Narrowed Down to Ministry of Culture Proposal
But KCC's Stubbornness Remains... Only Industry Sighs

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] Although three government ministries that pledged to develop a ‘Korean version of Netflix’ have narrowed their differences over the introduction of a voluntary rating classification system for online video services (OTT), confusion is expected as the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) still refuses to abandon the Audiovisual Media Service Act.

According to industry sources on the 4th, the OTT policy council, composed of three government ministries, has settled on a consensus centered around the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s proposal to transition to a voluntary rating classification system for OTT services.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has advocated granting OTTs the status of ‘OTT special operators’ similar to video content providers as a condition for the voluntary rating system, with a requirement for re-approval every three years. The Ministry of Science and ICT and the KCC initially pushed for a notification system but have since stepped back. However, the KCC is reportedly not giving up on its plan to establish an integrated regulatory system under the Audiovisual Media Service Act that would regulate pay TV, terrestrial TV, and OTT services together. The industry sighs that due to the KCC’s obstinacy, the introduction of the voluntary rating system has effectively been postponed until the second half of this year. The KCC’s Audiovisual Media Service team stated, “We are working on preparing institutional improvements in February,” adding, “Afterward, we plan to proceed with procedures to gather external opinions through forums and seminars.”

The OTT industry has expressed dissatisfaction over the government’s failure to keep promises to provide various support measures such as tax incentives and the introduction of a voluntary rating system. The OTT policy council, consisting of the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the KCC, has also shown disagreements over the control tower issue. An industry insider lamented, “While free platforms like YouTube can freely upload videos, domestic OTTs must, in principle, obtain re-approval even if they add just one line of subtitles.”

Even if the policy council’s proposal is finalized, there is still a long way to go. Once the government proposal is prepared, it will undergo a process of merging with the bill proposed by Park Jung, a member of the ruling Democratic Party on the National Assembly’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee. Park Jung submitted the ‘Partial Amendment to the Act on the Promotion of Films and Videos’ as the main sponsor in November last year, and the plan is to create a compromise bill by combining the two. The lawmaker’s bill includes conditions such as not granting OTT special operator status and not creating new regulations, requiring further coordination. An OTT industry official pointed out, “Even if a compromise bill is prepared, given that this year is an election year, it is highly likely to be delayed until the end of the year.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.