The Korean Government to implement a strategy tailored for the AI and digital transformation in the media and content industries

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- The MSIT announced the Plan for the Future of Media in the AI and Digital Age during the Ministry's 16th Meeting of the ICT Strategy Committee (September 12, 2023)

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The MSIT aims to:
➊ Develop & expand AI and digital technologies for each stage of workflow, from content planning to production, marketing and distribution.
· Build large and medium-sized virtual studios, advance digital human technology, and provide content production support;
· Secure user data by developing data self-multiplication and convergence technologies;
· Detect and prevent the proliferation of AI-powered illegal streaming services such as the infamous Noonoo TV;
➋ Train 1,500 professionals over the next three years.
➌ Implement flagship projects including three major policy tasks.

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The Ministry of Science and ICT (“MSIT”; Minister Lee Jong-ho) unveiled the Plan for the Future of Media in the AI and Digital Age at the 16th Meeting of the ICT Strategy Committee, presided by Minister Lee Jong-ho, held at the Grand Central, Jung-gu, Seoul on September 12.

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With ambitions to bring innovation to the media and content industries and enhance the global competitiveness of domestic companies, the Ministry held several rounds of meetings to listen to the opinions from the media and content industries, relevant institutes, the academia, experts, and other stakeholders. As a result, the Ministry was able to reflect the industry's demand for AI and digital technologies.

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The key points of the plan are as follows:

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The media industry is evolving, with consumers increasingly shifting from traditional media, such as broadcast television, to online media. This means that the scope of competition is expanding from domestic to global, and the elements of competitiveness are also expanding from having good contents to include AI and digital capabilities. The global Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms are analyzing users' data through AI, and using the results to create killer content or recommend personalized content based on their interests and preferences. In addition, the overall production process is going through some major transformations. For instance, the production cost has decreased to a third of what it used to be, with digital technologies such as virtual production. Global streaming platforms — Netflix, Disney, and Amazon — are taking over the global market by not just providing media and entertainment content, but also by deploying AI technologies.

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The Korean media industry is adopting AI and digital technologies to keep pace with the global trend, but relevant technologies and human resources are still at an early stage of development. In addition, production costs have skyrocketed due to the intensifying competition with global OTT giants (Production cost per episode: KRW 900 million for "Goblin: The Lonely and Great God" in 2016 → KRW 2 billion for "Mr. Sunshine" in 2018 → KRW 3 billion for "Sweet Home" in 2021). This led to a growing deficit in the industry (Operating deficit of the top three Korean OTT channels: -KRW 151.7 billion in 2021 → -KRW 285.9 billion in 2022). There are also concerns over a lack of investment capacity for emerging technologies such as AI.

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Against this backdrop, the MSIT developed the Plan for the Future of Media in the AI and Digital Age that promotes the use of AI and digital technologies and supports talent development, so that Korean companies may not lose the industrial base while competing well against global OTT platforms by leveraging AI and digital innovation, and be successful in overseas markets.

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The plan's policy objective is to “secure competitiveness in the global media and content industry by accelerating the AI-enabled digital transformation,” and consists of three policy tasks: ^□1 Integration of AI and digital transformation in each work flow, ^□2 Talent development, ^□3 Media & Content Flagship Projects.

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Under the Plan, the development and deployment of technologies and services will be promoted, integrating AI and digital technologies at each stage of the workflow, from content planning to production (post-production), marketing and distribution.

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➊ (Content Planning) Creating media content using Generative AI

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In the creation of a sci-fi short film, the Safe Zone, the producers used an AI chatbot to create the script and make a director's shot list, including instructions for camera movements and actors. It exemplifies how the industry is increasingly engaging more in content planning using AI and digital technologies as well as production using generative AI, which is why the Ministry will identify relevant service models and support the development of applicable technologies.

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Under the Ministry's support, media and content companies and hyper scale AI companies will work together to develop service models that utilize generative AI for planning, production, filming, and editing, and receive commercialization assistance.

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➋ (Production) (Post-production) Virtual production, digital human, AI-enabled captions and dubbing

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Just as global OTTs are producing content shot using virtual production, like 1899 (2022, Netflix) and the Mandalorian (2018, Disney+), Korean companies will now benefit from virtual production support so that they can enhance the quality of content and reduce production costs via AI-enabled digital technologies.

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(Virtual production) 1) Virtual production studios are used mostly by foreign companies and few large Korean companies. To allow access to small and medium-sized media and production companies, the Ministry will build a medium to large studios. 2) Computer-generated imagery (CGI) of Korea's landmark attractions and natural landscapes (approximately 10 locations) will be created to be used in LED virtual production studios to create realistic environments on set. 3) Small and medium-sized production companies' will receive support for the costs of using private studios.
* Virtual production: A filming technique using computer generated imagery on a LED wall

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(Digital human) 1) The Ministry will support content production using digital humans (2024, 5-10 content), 2) promote international joint research to capture the face and whole body simultaneously and automatically generate high-quality movements using AI (2025 onwards), and 3) support the development of diverse visualization technologies.

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(AI technology for subtitles, captions, and dubbing: global market entrance) 1) the Ministry will support the development of technologies that deploy AI to translation, subtitles, and dubbing to reduce time and cost. 2) In order to increase the translation accuracy, it plans to secure more data from the media and content industries for AI learning.

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➌ Marketing & Distribution) Secure user data and enable automatic identification of illegal content distribution

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Netflix offers personalized recommendations based on user data, while Disney+ analyzes audience's facial expressions and predicted the success of Big Hero, the Jungle Book, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Noting how global companies use AI tools to analyze data for their marketing strategies, the Ministry will help Korean companies provide personalized services to its users even with relatively insufficient information.

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(Securing user data) 1) The Ministry will develop automated data augmentation technology that artificially increases the training set by creating modified copies of a dataset using limited amount of existing data on users. 2) In addition to real-time broadcasting services such as TV and VoD, the Ministry will help develop technologies that combine viewing data and statistical data derived from smartphones and tablets.
* Automated data augmentation produces meaningful data and generates data different from the existing ones

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(Immediate response to illegal streaming services) Building on Korea's experience of taking down an infamous illegal streaming service, Noonoo TV, in December 2022, the Ministry will pursue the development of automatic identification and evidence collection technology that will use AI technology to automatically find and respond to suspected copyright infringement websites.

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In order to ensure the effectiveness of strategies for each workflow, and to address the shortage of domestic professionals in the media and content companies, the Ministry will train about 1,500 AI and digital talent in the media sector in the next three years. 1) To support talent development, the Ministry will reach agreements with the media, content, and AI companies to establish the Media DX Academy that provides long-term education and training for young people and provide internship opportunities. 2) For professionals in the media and content industries, AI and digital technologies training program will be provided, tailored to each stage of workflow from planning to production, and distribution. Online classes will also be provided for those who cannot make time for in-person programs.

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In an effort to accumulate experience in using AI and digital technologies to produce and distribute large-scale content that target a wider global audience, the Korean government will implement flagship projects that support consortium composed of media, content, technology companies. The Ministry plans to provide an integrated support, from technology development to investment attraction, production, to overseas distribution. In 2024, the support will be provided on a pilot-basis, by linking relevant support program, and from 2025 onwards, it will be implemented as a new large-scale project.

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To promote closer cooperation and communication with the industry, AI/Digital Media Committee comprised of media/content industry actors, AI/digital technology companies, academia, related organizations and experts participate, will be established and operated. The AI/Digital Media Committee will aim to discuss the changing industry landscape and major policy directions. The National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) will be the managing the operation of the Committee to implement relavant projects.

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Minister Lee Jong-ho said, “The Plan for the Future of Media in the AI and Digital Age was developed after in-depth discussions on how domestic companies should respond to the global media market, where competitive assets are expanding to AI and digital capacities, in addition to content.

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“As the next few years will be the golden hour, we will actively pursue the convergence of AI and media content and digital transformation policies so that Korea can secure competitiveness through innovation not only in Asia but also in the global market.”

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For further information, please contact the Public Relations Division (E-mail: msitpress@korea.kr) of the Ministry of Science and ICT.

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Please refer to the attached PDF.