Key Takeaways
A Seoul National University professor argued that Korean pay TV should be treated not as a simple channel delivery system, but as a core media platform connecting content and viewers.
The warning is that shrinking subscribers and weaker profits are not just an industry problem, but a threat to Korea's wider media ecosystem, including content investment, distribution, and access.
The proposed response is lighter regulation, more pricing and bundle autonomy, and a shift to rules based on service function and market power rather than the type of business.
Korean pay TV is being asked a basic but urgent question: is it merely a pipe for channels, or should it be rebuilt as a platform that links content and audiences? That debate now sits at the center of a broader argument over regulation, competition, and survival in a streaming-dominated market.
The call for change is not nostalgic. It comes from declining subscribers, weaker revenue, and the rapid rise of over-the-top streaming services and digital platforms, all of which have made the current model look increasingly brittle.
At stake is a larger policy choice. Should regulators keep strengthening old constraints, or give pay TV more freedom to find a new role in the market?
Pay TV Is More Than a Transmission Line
Hong Jong-yoon, a professor at Seoul National University, argued that Korean pay TV should be redefined as a physical and logical infrastructure that connects not only terrestrial broadcasters and program providers, but also online video services and digital platforms. In other words, the core issue is no longer just what comes through the screen, but what the system connects.
That shift matters because the decline of pay TV is not confined to company balance sheets. If the sector weakens, investment in content can fall, distribution channels can narrow, smaller and regional channels can lose visibility, and viewers may face fewer ways to reach programming. In this view, pay TV is not a fading utility but a gateway in the media ecosystem.
Still, the argument has limits. The moment pay TV is called a platform, the case for fewer rules and more freedom becomes easier to make. The hard question is whether that freedom would improve consumer choice or simply widen business flexibility. In a media market where every company wants to be called a platform, the distinction matters.
Stagnation, Not Just Decline, Is the Real Problem
Choi Chang-hee, head of the Digital Industry Policy Institute, sharpened that case with numbers. Total broadcasting industry revenue in 2025 fell 0.8 percent from the previous year to 18.6495 trillion won, marking a third straight annual decline. IPTV revenue growth was just 0.1 percent. In a market that has stopped growing, rules built for a different era are unlikely to solve much.
Choi called for converting pay TV pricing and bundled products to a reporting system, expanding small and selective packages, and gradually reducing mandatory channel carriage. He also urged streamlined license renewal and approval procedures, along with looser rules on advertising and content review. His basic diagnosis was simple: pay TV is required to do too many things while being allowed to do too little.
That diagnosis is persuasive. Viewing habits have already shifted toward streaming, and advertising no longer depends on one television set in one living room. If pay TV remains locked into an older regulatory framework, it will almost certainly lose further ground. Regulation alone will not save the sector, but leaving the current rigid model untouched is not a serious answer either.
Is Horizontal Regulation Really Fair?
Hong also argued for a horizontal regulatory system based on service function and market influence, rather than a framework built around broadcaster categories. On paper, that sounds fair. Services with similar market power should be judged by similar standards.
But horizontal regulation is not as simple as it sounds. Streaming services and pay TV earn money differently, distribute content differently, and collect user data in different ways. That raises a real question: does applying one shared standard actually create fairness, or does it ignore structural differences? Putting over-the-top services and pay TV on the same line does not automatically make competition conditions the same.
The point, then, is not identical regulation but equivalent responsibility for equivalent influence. The system should remove excessive obligations from pay TV, but it should also place corresponding duties on dominant platforms. Otherwise, deregulation could end up creating not innovation, but an imbalance in who carries responsibility.
The Real Goal Is Repositioning, Not Shrinking
The deeper message of the seminar was not that pay TV should simply be protected. It was that its role should be repositioned. The proposal to loosen rules on pricing, package design, and channel composition so that pay TV can combine more easily with streaming, free ad-supported TV, artificial intelligence, advertising, and commerce is essentially a plan for reinvention.
There are clear benefits to that approach. If selective packages become more common, viewers can pay less for channels they never watch, and operators can design products and partnerships more flexibly. If mandatory carriage rules and cumbersome approvals remain the norm, pay TV risks becoming the slowest-moving player in a fast-changing media market.
But greater freedom must not become an excuse to weaken public value. Regional channels, small program providers, and viewer access are not easily protected by market logic alone. So the real task is not to erase regulation, but to decide what should be loosened and what should remain. The needed reform is not to trap pay TV in the past, but to give it a legal framework that can make it function as a platform for the future.
