Industrial structure, government control, and network television programming: The case of South Korea

Abstract

This study attempts to test how existing theoretical assumptions about the relationship between changes in economic and political structure, and programming diversity can be applied to a Less Developed Country's (LDC's) situation, in this case South Korea. It hypothesizes that competition decreases programming diversity, since the LDC's TV broadcasting industries, whose structural changes are inseparable from changes in political structure, and do not have enough production capacities or financial resources, will cope with competition by duplicating or imitating a few popular formats. In Korea's case, this has been the actuality. During the past three decades of TV broadcasting, when competition was strong, diversity declined. The findings of the study show that, in the case of LDCs, strong competition is not necessarily desirable in terms of programming diversity. However, this should not be misunderstood as advocating strong government control in these countries. What this study proposes is the protection of TV viewers in Korea from TV networks which tend to fall into reckless rating games when they are under strong competition.