[Viewpoint] Where Is the Media Market Headed?

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The domestic media market is in crisis. Amid the overwhelming offensive of global platforms, the media industry is plunged into chaos, unable to find a clear direction. Global Over-The-Top (OTT) services are now subcontracting the domestic content production market. This crisis is not merely a slump but is shaking the very foundation of the domestic media industry.

The opening film of the 29th Busan International Film Festival, which concluded last week, "Jeon, Ran," sparked much controversy even before the festival began. Directed and written by Park Chan-wook, a leading figure in Korean cinema, the film garnered attention for its artistic quality and mass appeal, making it a fitting opening work for Asia's largest film festival. However, its production process was far from smooth. During the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic, the project faced a crisis due to the inability to secure a producer, until Netflix, which began investing in Korean films from 2020, made its first investment of over 30 billion KRW in a historical drama genre.

However, now that the festival has ended, the view of the Busan International Film Festival is not favorable. Many audiences and filmmakers protested, saying, "How can the Busan International Film Festival select a Netflix film, which is devouring theaters and proliferating, as its opening film?" The wavering policies of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also came under scrutiny. The opening film "Jeon, Ran," symbolic of the festival, went straight to OTT on the day the festival closed without even a holdback period that would delay the release to the secondary market after theatrical screening. Moreover, the fact that Netflix is foreign capital further fueled rejection. If it had been a domestic OTT like TVING, the opposition would not have been as strong.

The media was divided into two camps. One criticized, "The Busan International Film Festival, which has become an OTT platform with premiere screenings and large-scale advertisements from the opening film, has lost its unique identity," while the other gave positive evaluations, saying, "It embraced OTT, the trend of the times, and approached audiences with boldness and a spirit of challenge." The controversy does not seem to subside easily.

Next year, the Busan International Film Festival will turn thirty and has chosen almost all video-related content, including OTT series, webtoons, and games. It renamed its film market to "Content & Film Market" and invited Microsoft to its AI-related programs.

Park Kwang-soo, a director and chairman of the Busan International Film Festival, chose popularity and diversity. He said, "Aiming for popularity is a common trend among global film festivals, and a festival that the public cannot enjoy is meaningless." Director Kim Sang-man, who directed "Jeon, Ran," also emphasized that "Now is the time to consider new forms of expression in filmmaking with high quality rather than screen size," stressing that nothing is more important than content. There is a statistic that TVING subscribers watch more movies in theaters than non-subscribers. The relationship between paper newspapers and online news is similar.

CJ ENM, a leading domestic media company, held the "CJ Movie Forum" during the festival. It was a place to share CJ ENM's content strategy and discuss future growth strategies for the K-content industry. Theater operators, film investors, OTT operators, and drama producers gathered in one place to brainstorm. Yoon Sang-hyun, CEO of CJ ENM, said, "We will invest 1 trillion KRW annually in content production," and "We will maximize IP competitiveness to transform into a global IP powerhouse," but did not disclose specific investment methods.

Attendees were disappointed but it is too early to criticize. This is an era where more than 10 billion KRW is poured into cooking shows featuring chefs. CJ ENM plans to invest over 1 trillion KRW annually in K-content. The government will also invest 1 trillion KRW over five years in related industries. They will reap what they sow. Naturally. The question is how they will sow it.

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