Netflix turns 10 in Korea, but its success is a double-edged sword for K-content

Netflix turns 10 in Korea, leaving a double-edged legacy: It helped carry Korean content to a global audience, but it also drove up production costs and deepened the industry’s reliance on the platform.

Netflix launched its streaming service in Korea on Jan. 17, 2016, and is hosting a festival to celebrate its achievements at the Oil Tank Culture Park in Sangam-dong in Mapo District, western Seoul, on Saturday and Sunday.

Over the past decade, Netflix has established itself as a major force in Korea's entertainment industry and transformed the content production ecosystem.

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Its investment in Korean productions, including the globally successful series "Squid Game" (2021-25), has been widely credited with bringing Korean content to international audiences.

A total of 210 Korean titles appeared on Netflix's Global Top 10 rankings between June 2021, when the platform began compiling the rankings, and the end of last year. Korean-produced series accounted for 11 percent of worldwide viewing hours in the first half of this year, according to the JoongAng Ilbo's analysis of Netflix's viewing report. Korean productions were second only to content made in the United States, which accounted for 51.4 percent of viewing hours. 

"Netflix content featuring Korean themes, such as 'Squid Game' and 'KPop Demon Hunters' [2025], has achieved global success and elevated the standing of other Korean content," said film critic Huh Nam-woong. "Korean content creators have now reached a point where they develop productions with global audiences in mind."

Netflix's preproduction model has also helped improve the quality of Korean productions and working conditions in an industry long plagued by demanding schedules.

Traditionally, filming for later episodes of television series often happened while earlier episodes were airing. Netflix introduced a system in which productions are completed before release, allowing sufficient time for postproduction work before distributing content worldwide.

"The practice of writing scripts at the last minute largely disappeared as preproduction became common following Netflix's arrival," said Lee Sung-min, an associate professor in the Department of Media Arts & Sciences at Korea National Open University. "Even productions outside Netflix have generally improved in quality, as they now undergo sufficient postproduction work before release."

Netflix has also brought a wider range of genres and stories to audiences, including productions that may have struggled to find a place on traditional television networks.

Series such as the historical zombie thriller "Kingdom" (2019–), the apocalyptic horror series "Sweet Home" (2020–) and the supernatural thriller "Hellbound" (2021–) were released to worldwide audiences through Netflix.

The platform also helped diversify the format of Korean dramas. While traditional television series generally followed fixed structures, such as 16 episodes running about 60 minutes each, Netflix popularized shorter seasons of six, eight or 10 episodes. More series with multiseason productions also appeared.

But the industry's rapid expansion has also come at a cost.

Production budgets have soared, while concerns have grown that Korean production companies are unable to reap the full financial rewards of their global successes because they have transferred intellectual property (IP) rights to streaming platforms. Critics say these trends have created structural challenges for the broader industry.

"Before actors' fees began rising, driven in part by Netflix productions, the production cost per episode was around 500 million won ($377,000)," an industry source said. "Recently, that figure has increased roughly three to fivefold, reaching 2.5 billion to 3 billion won per episode."

The first season of "Squid Game" reportedly cost around 25 billion won to produce. More than 100 billion won was reportedly invested in its second and third seasons combined.

"As production costs rise, limited distribution channels make it increasingly difficult for companies to recoup their investments, leaving producers more dependent on investment from global platforms," said Park Ki-soo, a professor in the Department of Culture Contents at Hanyang University's Erica campus. "Although the content market has grown in size, the industry ecosystem, where various companies compete to produce and distribute content, could actually become more vulnerable."

The imbalance extends beyond production costs to the ownership of successful titles. Under Netflix's original production model, the company typically finances the entire production budget and pays producers a fixed margin in exchange for IP rights and the resulting commercial benefits.

There were also no Korean individuals or companies featured in the list of the world's 50 leading IP holders released by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Sept. 17.

Under such arrangements, Korean production companies can struggle to secure additional revenue proportional to a title's success, even when it becomes a global hit and expands into subsequent seasons, games or merchandise.

"When production companies do not own the IP rights, a successful production drives up costs, making it more difficult to reinvest in future projects," Prof. Park said. "This creates a vicious cycle and a distorted industry structure in which the content succeeds but the production company goes bankrupt."

BY JEONG EUN-HYE, CHOI MIN-JI [[email protected]]