This screenshot is from the hit JTBC drama "Reborn Rich."
By Yoo Yeon Gyeong
Photos = Netflix's official Facebook
The government will drastically boost its support for content production like the hit JTBC drama "Reborn Rich."
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Dec. 9 said it will raise its budget for broadcast video content to KRW 123.5 billion, a massive jump of 168% from last year's KRW 46.1 billion.
The Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) will team up with the ministry to pursue a project supporting content distribution, human resources and infrastructure.
The competition rate of over-the-top (OTT) content production was 10.8:1 last year and the budget for such content was raised over three-fold from KRW 11.6 billion last year to KRW 45.4 billion this year. The support limit per work was also raised to KRW 3 billion.
To receive funding, a work must first be aired on a domestic OTT platform and its intellectual property rights must be jointly owned by a domestic production company and OTT platform.
As part of this year's budget, KRW 30 billion was earmarked for post-production support for special visual effects, computer graphics, translation and dubbing, and video description service for the hearing impaired.
Subsidies worth KRW 40 billion include KRW 10 billion for support to help small and medium businesses make massive progress in this sector. This fund is geared for post-commercialization using intellectual property rights owned by domestic production companies as well as cooperation with overseas counterparts.
This scene is from the smash Netflix series "Squid Game."
The government will expand core production facilities to provide spaces where creators and producers can fully express their creativity. In May, construction is expected to finish for Studio Cube's multipurpose indoor studio for shooting on water for both regular and water filming. Located in Daejeon's Yuseong-gu District, the studio will receive a subsidy of KRW 7.9 billion from the government and was where the smash Netflix drama "Squid Game" was filmed.
The ministry will nearly double its support for a project to "specialize" the OTT content process, which develops specialized human resources with master's degrees or doctorates in relevant fields, from KRW 1 billion last year to KRW 1.9 billion this year.
Ending its run last month, "Reborn Rich" received production support from both the ministry and KOCCA, achieving its highest rating of 26.9% to become one of the most-watched dramas last year.
The ministry also supported "X of Crisis" aired by the Korean OTT platform Wavve and "Love in Spring," which was No. 1 in Japan and broadcast on the platform Watcha.
The ministry said, "We will spare no support so that broadcast video content becomes the game changer of our content industry."
dusrud21@korea.kr
