Recently, concerns over the reduction of drama broadcasting time may weaken the competitiveness in the Korean drama industry. In this process, drama production companies turned to global OTT platforms such as Netflix as they could afford the increasing production costs. At this point, OTT’s high appearance fees became the standard, which eventually weakened the production capabilities of drama production companies and studios even more. A vicious cycle in the drama industry was created.
As such, the Korea Drama Production Association held a meeting on January 16th to discuss this crisis and how to solve it.
During the meeting, drama producers confessed many realistic and detailed concerns regarding the current situation.
▶ Appearance fees for star actors have mounted up to billions per episode
Broadcasters urged the association to find a solution by complaining, “The reason countless issues arise during negotiations is actor appearance fees. Nowadays, the number is not just some millions, but billions per episode for a lead role”, adding “Some star actors also have so many requests, such as limiting the broadcasting platforms, changing the scripts or demanding replacements of directors. They also expressed regrets that they could not make spectacular war scenes as expected due to low budget.
▶ The need for a fixed system due to the problem of paying appearance fee per episode
Citing the significant rise in actor appearance fees, a drama production company official proposed the idea of paying actors based on the total number of days of filming and the filming duration rather than per episode.
A director from a drama production company shared, “The cost to produce one episode is around 12 to 15 billion won, so it’s difficult to increase appearance fees by 30 to 40 million won per actor. The problem is that some actors agreed to such amounts last year or the year before but they are impossible to cast now. Moreover, the number of programs has significantly decreased, and there’s no guarantee it will increase next year”, adding “In the past, one actor would do many projects, but now, there are numerous scripts but only a few dramas can be made. The future of the drama market is so gloomy”.
▶ Difference from global OTT platforms
Drama producers expressed frustration that people are applying the same standards of OTT dramas to them despite the big differences in production budgets. Mentioning OTT’s production cost of 2 billion won per episode, a producer complained, “It would be great if we could establish a rule not to pay actors more than 50 million won per episode”.
Another drama production company CEO stated, “Considering that 50% of the production budget is spent on acting, it might be possible to cast more reasonably priced actors and invest more in filming or art direction, thus creating more competitive and artistic dramas.”
Knowing casting star actors is costly, it is hard to avoid it because they guarantee popularity overseas. In this regard, some producers expressed concerns over the lack of opportunities for other actors, saying “We should try to produce successful dramas without using top stars”.
In addition to high actor appearance fees, they also pointed out the importance of emphasizing directing, filming, and art direction to enhance the completeness of the content. Moreover, the cost of hiring staff has significantly increased since the implementation of the 52-hour working week system, and there has been a notable rise in art and CG outsourcing costs.
Through the meeting, the Korea Drama Production Association urged continuous discussion on issues and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to come up with solutions.
Source: Nate
