Since its founding in 1996, Arirang Television has established itself as the country's premier international broadcasting service, providing news, entertainment, educational and documentary programs to 188 countries in seven languages, including English, Chinese, Spanish and Arabic.
However, Arirang is now finding it difficult to keep up with an oversized competitor in KBS, the country's biggest national network that is pushing its own aspirations for an international presence through KBS World.
KBS World, which provides local KBS programs with English subtitles and dubbing, was originally targeted for South Korean expatriates and ``gyopos,'' or foreign nationals with Korean ethnic descent. This differed from Arirang's objectives of becoming Korea's global public relations (PR) agent, promoting positive images of the country's life, culture and economy in different corners of the planet.
However, KBS World has since expanded its coverage to nearly 20 countries since its 2003 debut and has been pushing around Arirang in major pay-T.V. markets in Asia and North America.
Arirang once reached to more than a million households in the Philippines, but that number was halved after KBS World took hold in the country's major cable networks.
Arirang has been in Cambodia since 2001, but with KBS World entering the market in 2006, it now has a miniscule presence in Phnom Penh. Hong Kong was a similar story, where KBS World won the rights to be slotted among the ``basic'' cable channels, thus securing larger exposure, which came at the expense of Arirang, available only in more expensive packages.
The day I lost Arirang TV from my cable package was a happy one, and having watched a little KBS World in Taiwan and Vietnam, I can say I'd be glad to have it on my TV here or back home. A big part of our collective disappointment with Arirang is that foreigners expect more from the lone English-language station in Korea, not simply cheerleading, dull interviews, English-education programming, or documentaries on brown people living the Korean Dream. But the article reveals, in a look at whether KBS will end up absorbing Arirang, that we were wrong to expect anything else.
Does Korea really need a fully devoted PR channel, rather than discarding the training wheels and leaving regular broadcasting corporations to provide the country's multilingual extensions?
Interestingly, the majority of policymakers, television officials and academics who spoke with The Korea Times answered with a definitive ``yes.'' Not many of the experts believe that KBS alone has a prayer of competing with the likes of the BBC and NHK in terms of financial power and the breadth and quality of programs for the global audience.
``It would be weird if countries like Britain or Japan had their own PR channels, considering the influence of the English and Japanese languages, but you really can't say that people around the world are that much interested in Korea,'' said Song Jong-gil, a mass media professor at Kyonggi University.
``Thus, a PR channel like Arirang clearly has an important role. It's similar to how companies try to sell their products overseas ― if the buyers don't come to you, you go to them.''
A KCC official, who wished to remain anonymous, agreed that it would be highly unlikely for government officials to give up on the idea of having a channel to ``properly'' introduce the country to the world.
. . .
``Operating a promotional channel for the country is all about purpose-oriented programming, with the predominant focus on improving the country's image and brand value. It's more than just making subtitles or doing English voice-overs over your regular programs and sending them out, like KBS World does,'' said Arirang's Lee.
``It's similar to the difference between PR and journalism. Considering its status as a public broadcaster, KBS would be able to treat the job of promoting the country only as an `additional service,' and reluctant to invest too much money and personnel. The limitations will be very clear,'' said Lee.
It closes with a quotation from "the team leader of Arirang's innovation and policy planning division":
``We still have a lot to do, as the image of Korea is not always positive, especially in some Asian countries where people have unpleasant memories of their countrymen being treated poorly as migrant workers in Korea in the past. And countries such as China and Japan are putting in more efforts to strengthen their international channels, and we can't afford to fall behind.''
Or you could take steps to not treat foreigners poorly as migrant workers in Korea, or buy their young women as mail-order brides, or force your culture on international audiences in the same manner that you've come to resent the US doing. Is it wrong to think an international audience would be more interested in the services of a network than an extended promotional video? I know I'd rather watch news and subtitled soap operas and authentic media---and if they had movies, that'd be awesome---than kimcheerleading, but am I in the minority among foreigners in Korea? Among international viewers? Do others really care either way?
18 comments:
Arirang sucks. Their business model sucks. Their inability to understand how to balance positive and negative sucks.
I can think of only one or two good things to say about Arirang, having once worked there, but I'll save it for a lengthy post on my own blog, because it would be tl;dr as a comment.
I enjoyed the game show "The Contenders", at least partly because I won four games. It was a sort of Jeopardy for non-geniuses; perfect for me.
Now that the show is cancelled, I don;t watch Arirang anymore.
Because I'm not fluent in Korean, the only chances for me to enjoy Korean TV have been when I'm away from Korea on vacation, watching KBS World with English subtitles. For example, last winter in the Philippine Islands I was able to actually comprehend an hour or so of 'Misuda'. I probably learned more about Korea in that hour than I do in a typical week or even month of actually living (t)here.
Arirang, meanwhile, is just awful, I agree. When I first arrived I was given a guidebook, prepared by Koreans, that among other gems advises, "In general it is considered rude to stare at someone in Korea - especially at a foreigner who stands out, which is different from American society in which directly staring at someone is not considered to be rude." FAIL
Arirang? It's kind of like that.
Regular television makes me want to me run away and take up folk dancing in some lost corner of the world.
Arirang TV makes me want to scream, smash the television set, chop my head off and then poke my eyes out, so as to ensure I never have to suffer the experience of seeing it ever again.
... Speaking of flesh wounds, that really is classic quote:
"We still have a lot to do, as the image of Korea is not always positive, especially in some Asian countries where people have unpleasant memories of their countrymen being treated poorly as migrant workers in Korea in the past. ..."
Uh huh. Throw some hideous TV at them and they'll all feel better. That's what I'd call putting an old band-aid over the gate after the horse has bolted.
Is there any other nation that does shit as embarrassing as this? Is there any other nation that is so publicly and entrenchedly deluded about their role and purpose in the world? I know that this trait basically boils down to a hangover from the days of military dictatorship when the values that Arirang represents were inculcated at gunpoint, but for f*ck's sake, Korea, have a f*cking clue!
KBS World at least succeed in vaguely giving the world what it wants (or a very small corner of the world anyway) by broadcasting the inexplicably popular dramas that play so well in the rest of Asia. However, the last time I saw KBS World, they were gumming up the rest of the schedule with indoctrination-as-game-shows. One particularly bad example seemed to exist purely to expound upon the wonders of the Korean strawberry. Two teams were doing battle to win a bowl of strawberries, and in between the insipid competition, various experts were wheeled out to explain why the Korean strawberry so effortlessly bests its competitors in its versatility, nutritiousness and all-round very-deliciousness, whilst the competitors said 'waa!' and 'aaw!' and expressed their keen desire to get their hands on the strawberry-tastic prize.
It was shudderingly embarrassing, and if one or two of the contestants hadn't been overweight, you might well have believed it was being broadcast from North Korea. KBS would do itself a huge favour by putting a lid on such crap.
like kwandongbrian, i like the show "The Contenders" too from Arirang. But yeah, i agree KBS world is better.
But Julian, how else would they brain wash the young,uneducated, poor women who live in the countryside of east asia into believing that Korea is a fun multicultural land of oppertunity where they can find a great husband if they didnt broadcast these shows into other countries?
Sure the cousin who bought the tv (with money from his job in a Korean factory) that they're watching the shows on has burns all over his body from working with molten alluminum. And the burns did get infected because he didnt have any medical insurance. And when he left he didnt get his final paycheck...but HEY! Arirang makes it look sooo much fun! It cant be that bad!
South Korea will always be the fat girl at the dance(my apologies to any fat girls reading this for compairing them to Koreans). Relegated to the corner, whining to her friends about some injustice done to her, repeatedly asking them if she is pretty. Someone will dance with her, but usually out of pity.
Koreans have NO IDEA how the world views them. They have NO IDEA about the world outside of Korea. Ask them a question about world history; they will have no idea what you are talking about.
That felt good.
I rather liked Arirang TV. They used to have great 서극 dramas (period dramas). They would show like 40 or 50 episodes...the whole series. I loved it. I remember one with 이영애 (Lee, Young-A)called 서강 (West Gate). I still have the whole series on VHS back in the Fatherland. They also had one about the three kingdoms and their wars. The Shilla, Paekjae, and Koguryo costumes were fabulous.
The Let's learn Korean was how I learned a lot of Korean. I liked learning from Lisa Kelly. She was hot.
But the interviews were dry, boring, and awkward. They never once had any one on any show that questioned the party line, as it were. Very disappointing.
I know the Korean dramas are popular with the less affluent (sp) Asian nations. They aspire to the kind of prosperity the Koreans have. But the dramas are usually ludicrous, with Koreans living in 2 story houses that are lavishly furnished. 99% of Korean do not live that way.
Bottom line is....Koreans will not accept foreigners making decisions for them; they will always reject that. They think they are too smart; too smart by half and half again.
Arirang generally sucked. Many hours were given to running corporate promotional videos or programs that looked a lot like them. However I did like their morning pop music program. Not that I was that interested in Kpop but it was helpful to understand the Korean music/tv/movie star system so when your students started talking about big bang you didn't think they were talking about an inflationary universe.
I was up in Nowon and my cable system pulled Arirang and replaced it with a Japanese language station and a Chinese language station. Odd thing is I didn't see many Chinese or Japanese in Nowon. English speakers were the only ethnic group. So no sure who they thought they were serving.
||South Korea will always be the fat girl at the dance(my apologies to any fat girls reading this for compairing them to Koreans).||
I always thought Korea was like the ugly, geeky girl in high school who hits her ripe 20s and becomes a solid 8. She spends about the next decade of her life fishing for compliments and wanting a lot of credit for wearing a mini skirt.
mindmetoo said...Odd thing is I didn't see many Chinese or Japanese in Nowon. English speakers were the only ethnic group. So no sure who they thought they were serving.
I'm pretty they were serving Nowon. *boom* *boom*
Seriously though, Arirang was semi-interesting for me in my first year learning a bit more about the place and watching shows like "The Contenders". Though, I quickly tired of it and its bs, and won't mourn its loss.
As for The Contenders... was that the one with the female host or the one with the male and female host team?
The Contenders
i got this from youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlqenRAxSJQ
i like that show, but as kwandongbrian pointed out the questions there are actually very easy..i hope they have here something similar to Jeopardy (in English)
i liked Arirang.I sure like the Korean drama with subtitles, and the Korean for amateurs (four or five languages, i think).
then there's K-pop, Korean entertainment news, some shallow documentaries, some cheesy english kiddie programs... and please start sensing the sarcasm here...
I miss the dramas with subtitles. But beyond that, thank God it was DCd from our cable two years ago.... =)
When I first came to Korea Arirang had a Sunday morning talk show where they had experts from different fields debate the current issues in Korea. Once that was cancelled, I stopped watching the channel.
I watched a little arirang before I got rid of my tv... it was lame, and I felt like the only people who'd watch it were Koreans who wanted to feel good about their country and feel like they were polishing their English at the same time. On the other hand, the American Forces Network Public Service Announcement ads (because AFN couldn't play commercials) were equally lame, which makes me think if either of them had the budget to bring in better creative people, they might have turned the thing around.
The question, as with some of Korea's other English language media, is who their real audience is... with the English radio stations, it's become fairly clear that the target audience is Koreans, not foreigners. Same with Arirang?
I was actually on Arirang TV's debate show Face To Face several times and the management there was terrible: Very unorganized, very unprofessional and very rude. I'm still waiting to get paid...and it's been over a year.
Arirang TV and its programming is the perfect image of what Korea thinks the world should know about their nation. While they might have the occasional decent show running, most of it comes off as a very long and poorly placed infomercial.
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