Created as a political voice of the South Korean government in the 1950’s, freed during the socio-political revolution of 1994, K-dramas have played a significant role in the life of Koreans and are currently carrying Hallyu, the Korean Wave, to the rest of world.
Even before the invention of television, dramatic entertainment was been influenced by socio-political factors going back to radio dramas of the late 1920’s when the Korean peninsula was annexed to Japan. Under Japanese rule about a third of the programming in Korea was in Japanese.
In 1945, after Japan’s defeat at the end of WWII the Korean peninsula was divided between Russia in the North and the United States in the South. In the late 1950’s the first S Korean television broadcasting station, an experimental station, began but was destroyed by fire after a couple of year.
This experimental station was followed in 1961 by KBS (Korean Broadcasting System). In the 1960’s the content of the dramas was controlled by the military government. Dramas were used as a means to engrain an anti-communist sentiment against N Korean and Russian influences. For example, the drama, Real Theatre, airing between 1964 to 1985, was a tool of the government’s anti-communism drive. To ensure that government influences remained paramount, commercial advertising was banned until 1969.
In the 1970’s with the ban on advertising lifted and televisions more affordable for the general population, TV drams became a pervasive form of family entertainment. The number of history lesson type dramas decreased with more content mirroring contemporary culture.
It’s worth noting that with this boom in K-Drama viewership in the 70’s the government again imposed tighter controls on content and required the TV networks to air a regulated amount of time to news and educational programs.
Influenced by Japanese TV dramas, the 1980’s saw an increase in K-Dramas geared to attract a youthful viewership. Love stories with trendy fashions about people in the late teens and 20’s became more popular. Love and Ambition aired in1987 with a reported 78% viewership. The Korea Times, 3 February 2012 reminisced that “Streets became quiet around the airing time of the drama as practically everyone in the country was at home in front of the TV”.
Sageuk (historical dramas) were introduced with emphasis on the pre-Japanese occupation period of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897). 500 Years of Joseon Dynasty ran for eight years,1983 to 1990.
With increasing urbanization, a nostalgia for a more pastoral, agrarian society is noticeable during the 80’s with a number of dramas depicting farming and village life. Pastoral Diary and Hill of Rising Sun are two examples.
In the 1990’s governmental regulations were relaxed and commercial enterprises were allowed to invest money in television programming. Previously broadcasting companies would air state oriented messages but with the advent of commercial advertisement, the production companies had money to invest in the salaries of actors, technology, location changes and thereby expand the viewership of K-Dramas outside of Korea.
With the birth of the Korean Wave or Hallyu a golden age of Korean television programming begins. Government agencies combined with commercial enterprises, intent on creating “soft power” by spreading Korean culture and therefore Korean products beyond the state border invested in K-drama production and distribution. The show What Is Love aired on Hong Kong network and reached not only Hong Kong but also a nearby Chinese province.
As Euny Hong argues in her 2014 book, The Birth of Korean Cool, exporting Korean pop culture was an intentional elaborate strategy of the Korean government to pull itself out of poverty following the Asian financial crisis of 1997. With few natural resources to exploit, President Kim Dae-jung spearheaded the campaign to use information technology and the “soft power” of pop culture to pay off a $20 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.
The Korean government even paid for the show to be translated into Cantonese and convinced Korean companies in Hong Kong to buy advertising. Euny Hong continues, “The seeds of an addiction were planted…. A slew of other Korean dramas followed; their popularity spread through Asia — Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines” (p 167).
A new mini-series format became popular:
- 12-24 episodes
- Complete in one season
- One hour format
- Funding from the Korean government, private companies and advance sales to nonKorean companies
- Product placement
- Subtitles in dozens of languages
The 2000’s ushered in a new genre of “fusion sageuk” and web dramas.
The industry can average around $250,000 – $500,000 per episode with actors taking as much of 50% of the budget. Since the early 2010’s K-Dramas have become so popular internationally that producers are pre-selling streaming rights and thereby having plenty of funding to create television shows that rival anything the US has to offer in terms of writing, cinematography or acting. The Korean movie Parasite winning the 2019 Academy Award for Best Picture is a case in point.