Starting from January 16th, South Korea witnessed a very ugly and public dispute between broadcast network KBS and the Korea Cable TV Association (KCTA) over an issue of retransmission fees.

The KCTA sought to push down fees from major broadcasting channels like KBS for retransmitting their programs through cable. KBS had demanded 280 won per subscriber, while the cable TV system operators (or 'SOs') wanted no more than 100 won.

Negotiations reached a standstill, and so the SOs decided to make several KBS programs unavailable to viewers starting from 3:00 p.m. KST.

The SOs stopped transmitting both standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) signals from the KBS2 channel. This meant that unless TV viewers had an Internet-based network or could finagle a signal from an antenna, they saw a message like the one above on their TV screens.

Having lost a substantial amount of their viewers, KBS's programs experienced a major decline in their ratings.



Out of the many KBS programs affected by the blackout, prime-time drama 'Brain' suffered the most with a drop of 5.2% from its previous week of 16.2%.

While many viewers expressed their frustration by lashing out at the official site's forum, others decided to tune into rival dramas such as MBC's 'Light and Shadow' and SBS's 'History of the Salaryman'. As such, both programs saw much improved ratings, clocking in 16.8% and 12.1% respectively.



Following the blackout, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) has ordered the SOs to resume transmission or face a hefty fine. The SOs initially refused to budge from their position, but as of 7:00 p.m. (KST) on January 17th, they agreed to resume KBS's transmissions, thus ending the 28-hour blackout.

====

Source: HeraldM via Nate, Korean Herald, Yonhap News, Nate