The broadcasters KBS Media, MBC, EBC and SBS, as well as the international network Arirang TV, the news channel YTN, CU Media, which distributes five cable channels, and CJ E&M, which distributes other three, participated in Budapest.

‘Our core business is to find new partners all across the world. The Korean Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) has organized Rendez Vous in Latin America in the past and now and Korean Internet & Security Agency (KISA) support these companies to connect CEE companies interested in developing projects with us’, explains Son Chang Yong to Prensario.

In Asia, South Korea is the larger exporter of drama content with established markets like Japan. Now, they want to expand and they are doing well in South America, with titles that have been broadcasted in Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru. ‘We understand there are cultural differences that some times complicated our expansion, but we are working in localize the content’, he adds.

In that sense, KCC organized in London just right after Natpe Budapest (June 29th) a showcase of Korean content for British broadcasters. There were 75 executives from BBC, ITV, Channel 5 and Channel 4. In the CEE markets, there are Korean series in the public broadcaster of Hungary m1: The Great Queen, Asian Corridor in Heaven, as well as in Romania and Poland.

Government support
Its widely know the big support the Korean government is doing to push the audiovisual industry in higher level. While KOCCA, KISA and KCC gather Korean producers and support a space for them in the international venues, the government is offering different financial programs.

‘For instance, the government has invested more than 2000 billion of Korean won (1.75 billion of US dollars) annually in direct or indirect way: helping the companies to have presence in the international market and building infrastructure or studios in Korea’, explains Yong.