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| Posters for reality shows "Who am I," from left, "Battle in the Box" and "Run Out," which received support from the Korea Creative Content Agency / Courtesy of KOCCA |
By Lee Gyu-lee
The Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) has seen positive outcomes from its support programs, which are designed to help creators secure the intellectual property rights to their work and promote the sales of their content formats in the global market.
"With the growing popularity of K-content since Netflix's series Squid Game, there have also been issues arising over rights between the channels/platforms and the creators/producers," Lee Do-hyeong, head of KOCCA's Broadcasting Division, said in a statement.
"KOCCA will continue to support creators and producers to secure the intellectual property rights to the formats they are developing, as well as strive to lead the global market in developing formats that will appeal to audiences globally."
Under the state-run agency's program, which provided assistance to small and medium-sized independent productions to develop their content formats, local production company Nmedia signed a deal on its format under development, "Battle in the Box," with the U.S. network Fox. The reality show made it to production and started airing on the local cable network MBN on Wednesday.
Vitamin TV, another company that received the agency's aid, has scored deals with the local over-the-top (OTT) platform wavve to stream its variety program "Who am I," and is in the process of making a spinoff show.
KOCCA's other support program, Format Lab, also provided platforms for production companies to develop their show ideas.
With the help of the program, local production company Something Special has signed a deal with New York-based production company My Entertainment to develop two of its TV show treatments.
The company also struck first-look deals and partnerships with Viacom International Studios, which is part of global media giant ViacomCBS, to develop formats, expanding its activities in the global market.
FormatEast, a subsidiary company of local network SBS, also launched two shows through the Format Lab program. Last month it started airing the short-form reality series "Bluechip Stars" on KakaoTV, a local OTT platform, and is set to release a pilot episode for the music show "Fantastic Family ― DNA Singer" (direct translation) next month.
"We have gotten a lot of responses to the treatment for DNA Singer after showcasing in various events abroad," an official of FormatEast said through the agency. "We are getting closer to making deals with global media companies in regions like the U.S and Europe on the show's format."
