Since reality television was leveled up as a high concept television through the economic and technological impetus toward privatization, commercialization and globalization (Holmes & Jermyn, 2004), it is essential to look at how these shifts have affected the business of local reality television. Considering the broad trends in global television industry, the rules and requirements enabling reality television production and its business in the local conditions should be
discussed. As mentioned above, this study reviewed diverse documents to draw a robust picture of the Korean reality television history. The preliminary analysis for the time division is aimed to clarify what kinds of production trends have been formed at the intersection of socio-cultural factors, the industrial changes, audience preferences and choices and how the production trends have temporal and spatial differences.
From the archival analysis, the author found that there are five significant factors which have influenced in the development of Korean reality television: the influx of global reality
television shows; technological and organizational innovations; changes in viewers’ tastes and viewing habits; growth of the regional television markets; and the competitions between
broadcasters in relation to the hegemonic changes in the national television industry. Considering the complex interrelated factors affecting the development of the local reality television, the author seeks to differentiate the development phases of the Korean reality shows by period.
The periodic characteristics of the three phases are briefly summarized as follows. The first phase is the formation of Korean reality television formats. This formation period is divided into two stages, the incubation and the birth stages. The incubation of Korean reality television formats is identified from 1998 to 2007. As a transitional period to seek for new entertainment television forms and contents, this phase shows the pre-history of the Korean reality format. During this period, terrestrial television networks actively conducted various experiments with “candid camera” to create a new type of variety shows under a large-scale reconstruction of the local media industry. The birth period of locally formatted reality shows corresponds from 2006 to 2012. In this stage, foreign reality shows were officially imported to the Korean television market. The major terrestrial broadcasters tried to localize the global formats, whereas cable networks tended to seek for the singularity of the original formats. Through many trials and errors, the local producers succeeded in creating a new type of real-variety show Infinite Challenge. The production techniques and tactics of Infinite Challenge, which mobilize numerous cameras and staffs, were transferred as a model case to other Korean producers, thereby bringing real-variety shows into fashion.
The second phase is the period that the Korean reality formats were exported to regional markets, especially to China. This period is also divided into two aspects, the exports to and co- production with China. Korean reality formats began to be exported to regional markets in
earnest from 2010. The most striking feature of this period was that Korean producers planned programs with a clear purpose of exporting their format to global market. Although they were not accustomed to and supported for making the bible, they were able to successfully sell their formats to China by offering field trips and guidance for the local adaptation. The export
potential to China gave the Korean reality formats an opportunity for self-transformation. In this aspect, complex combination of diverse generic elements was implemented to generate new types of reality formats. The other aspect portrays the full-scale of collaboration with China through various forms of co-production between Korea and China from 2014 to 2016. The co- production took place in a wide range from major television stations to independent production companies. In addition, a number of Korean producers, writers, and engineers moved to China to develop and produce a new format customized to Chinese audiences. The co-produced reality shows contained different narratives and images from the Korean ones.
As the current phase, Korean reality shows are seeking new markets and sources. In response to the sudden shutdown of the Chinese market, Korean producers are trying to go global. Through the collaborative format development with global format creators, they find a way to create a killing format for global markets. At the same time, they are developing a new reality format suitable to new media platforms and niche audiences. The innovative outcomes have led by the big cable television networks. These cable companies have recruited a number of producers from the major terrestrial stations since the opening of their new channels in 2011. The transferred producers’ skillful production abilities and ethical mindset giving considerable
thoughts to public interest have changed the way in which the cable networks used to produce lowbrow or imported programs focusing on young generations. The components of television formats like themes, cast, location, scripts, subtitles have been more diversified and extended.
The start of the ‘going-global’ phase is regarded the export of Grandpas Over Flowers to European countries and the US beyond Asian countries from 2014.
Based on the chronological division, the author addresses in more detail how Korean reality formats have settled and developed themselves as a remarkable genre and as a tradable commodity in the local television industry. Each phase is explained in the following chapters (Chapter 6, 7, and 8), taking the five influencing factors inside and outside of the Korean format industry into account. Each of the three subsequent chapters presents overall information of the local television industry with major legal, financial, and organizational changes as well as political, economic, and social circumstances. Primary sources such as interviews, news articles, statistics, etc. are provided as an evidence of the time-periodic characteristics. Some examples of the local television programs that represent each period are listed. Among them, specific
examples are analyzed in more detail in relation to the production strategies and practices, innovations and creativities, or aesthetics and narratives. With the analysis, the example programs provide the information about who led the development of the Korean reality show format in what manner at the time and what implications the programs have in the history of the Korean reality television format.
6 FORMATION OF KOREAN REALITY FORMAT
This chapter describes the transitional period of Korean television industry from national television to globalizing television. As the rapid diffusion of new media and neo-liberal media reform opened the domestic television market to the world, television format emerged as a new business model. While format trading was already active in global marketplaces, Korean
broadcasters and producers were not fully aware of television format business. They were always seeking for something out of the common, but these attempts and experiments were carried out
within the local dominant culture because of the social and institutional nature of television production.
As Williams (1981) vaguely distinguished television forms into the dominant, the residual, and the emergent in the sense of hegemony, meanings, values, practices and relationships in the dominant culture cannot be clearly identified into the emergent or the
residual. Since television production is placed in specific relationships, skills, and perceptions, it is interpreted in a certain social context. In other words, the residual elements which were
effective in the past might be alternative or oppositional to the dominant. Likewise, the emergent might be elements in the new phase of the dominant or something alternative or oppositional to it. Moreover, the locally residual might work as the emergent on a global scale and vice versa. Therefore, a newly perceived form should be understood in the internal dynamic relations of the local television industry, particularly during a transition period.
In this regard, what forms and content were dominant in Korean entertainment show production, what values, meanings and practices were developed as new discoveries, and how the residual spawned new values for the local entertainment programs is discussed in the formation process of the locally formatted reality shows. Through the industrial data and statistics on imports and exports of the Korean television industry, it examines what internal changes the local television industry has undergone over the past decade from the end of 1990s and the end of 2000s.
This chapter is divided into two subchapters: the incubation stage of Korean reality shows and the birth stage of locally developed real-variety shows. The incubation stage encompasses the Korean primetime variety shows in the mid of 1990s, which attempted to capture televisual reality with a form of candid camera. What makes the Korean show different
from the foreign candid camera programs is that it combined public interest messages in
celebrity-centered variety shows. The discussion of candid camera programs with public interest messages draws links with social responsibilities of public service television as well as social atmosphere of the national economic crisis in the late 1990s. The discussion of public-interest variety shows also extends beyond the series itself to follow its legacy through live campaign shows that have often mobilized the Korean people to overcome national disasters and promote social and political agendas.
The next stage is devoted to the birth of locally formatted reality television, real-variety shows that sprang up in the mid of 2000s. This subchapter combines the introduction of global television format to the local television industry, the application of multiple team production system with dozens of camera and non-linear editing to the weekly primetime variety shows, and the different conditions of the public terrestrial networks and commercial cable networks to make a claim for the basis of the new format type of the Korean real-variety shows. This chapter considers how internal and external constraints and conditions of the local public television system led to the creation of the real-variety shows that internalized the public interest messages within the framework of primetime entertainment shows.