S.Korea’s KT to innovate media, content businesses with AI

South Korea’s telecom giant KT Corp. is set to innovate its media and content businesses with artificial intelligence as it seeks new growth drivers given the saturation of the local telecommunications market.

KT on Monday unveiled Magic Platform, a business-to-business (B2B) media solution that produces and analyzes video content. The platform will be offered in the form of a website for customers who do not have infrastructure.

“The media sector is KT’s top three businesses along with telecommunications and AI,” Kim Hoon-bae, head of the telco group’s media platform business, told reporters at an event to introduce its media and content business strategy. “We aim to lead the market by adding unrivaled AI technology competitiveness to the media value chain.”

KT aims to ramp up revenue from media and content by 19% to 5 trillion won ($3.6 billion) in 2025 from the 4.2 trillion won in 2022.

The group has 12 media-related affiliates such as KT Studiogenie Co., the producer of Netflix hit drama series "Extraordinary Attorney Woo," and KT Skylife Co., a broadcasting unit. More than 13.3 million homes subscribed to the media services of the telecommunication behemoth as of February.

AI FOR ALL MEDIA AFFILIATES

KT aims to actively use AI for all of its media businesses.

The Magic Platform allows users to produce desired videos with generative AI to improve old content and switch low-definition content to high-definition content.

The group plans to add a function that enables customers to find desired people, actions and music in a video clip through AI analysis of the content in the second half.

In the fourth quarter, KT is set to introduce an on-device AI set-top box, which provides tailored content to viewers with AI functions identifying their preferences.

PAIK’S LES MISERABLES

KT plans to strengthen its content business with a target of double-digit growth in content sales. The group’s content revenue last year grew 25.7% to 640 billion won.

KT Studiogenie is slated to lead the group’s drama production, while Skylife TV Co., KT Skylife’s subsidiary, is poised to handle entertainment shows.

Skylife TV is putting high hopes on a show featuring a celebrity South Korean star chef, "Paik Jong Won’s Les Miserables."

“As the content market has become a red ocean with infinite competition, only top channels can survive,” said Skylife TV CEO Kim Ho-sang. “We won’t spare production costs to introduce better content and become one of the top seven channels by 2026.”

KT Studiogenie plans to seek the localization of its intellectual property in overseas markets such as Taiwan, Mongolia and Germany.

It aims to expand its business to joint content production and remakes, from sales and distribution of existing drama series.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com
 

Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.