Starting from January 16th, South Korea witnessed a very ugly and public dispute between broadcast network KBS and the Korea Cable TV Association (KCTA) over an issue of re-transmission payments.
The dispute between KBS and KCTA’s 94 cable TV system operators (or ‘SOs’) was about KBS demanding 280 won per subscriber, while the SOs wanted no more than 100 won. Negotiations reached a standstill, and so the SOs decided to make several KBS programs unavailable to viewers starting from 3:00 p.m. KST.
Most SOs stopped transmitting both standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) signals from the KBS2 channel. As a result, many of KBS’s programs experienced a major decline in their ratings.
With a blackout being enforced, most of KBS programs suffered a ratings decline. In particular, prime-time drama ‘Brain‘ suffered a drop of 5.2% from its previous week of 16.2%.
While many viewers expressed their frustration by lashing out at the official site’s forum, others decided to tune into rival dramas such as MBC‘s ‘Light and Shadow‘ and SBS‘s ‘History of the Salaryman‘. As such, both programs saw much improved ratings, clocking in 16.8% and 12.1% respectively.
Following the blackout, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) has ordered the SOs to resume transmission or face a hefty fine. The SOs initially refused to budge from their position, but as of 7:00 p.m. (KST), they reached a dramatic consensus with KBS to resume transmissions and negotiate terms again, thus ending the 28-hour blackout.
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