The global success of K-dramas has changed the balance of international entertainment, but to understand where the South Korean audiovisual industry is really going we need to observe what happens away from the screens, in the markets where producers, distributors and platforms discuss rights, intellectual property and co-productions. Because South Korea, after having demonstrated its ability to create series capable of crossing linguistic and cultural borders, is consolidating a more complex industrial transition: not limiting itself to exporting content already produced, but proposing projects, narrative models and formats that can also be developed and adapted by international partners.
This is the perspective that emerged in Rome during CODE KOREA: Korea’s OTT Originals Showcasethe meeting organized by the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) and the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, with the support of the Korean Cultural Institute in Italy, as part of the twelfth edition of MIA, the International Audiovisual Market.
In the Winter Garden Room of the Westin Excelsior, two realities of Korean entertainment, CJ ENM and NEXTKEYpresented different approaches to the production of original content for streaming platforms, offering an indication of the directions along which Seoul intends to strengthen its presence in European markets.
On the one hand, the serial model that contributed to the worldwide diffusion of Hallyu, on the other, a program that transforms disinformation and news generated by artificial intelligence into a television competition: two very different languages, united by the search for an international dimension that does not necessarily require giving up the Korean productive identity.
The K-drama market enters a new phase
The international popularity of Korean series is now an established fact, but success among the public does not automatically coincide with the ability to build a sustainable industry, capable of valorising its rights and negotiating agreements with the main foreign operators.
The issue concerns above all intellectual property, indicated by the acronym IP, and the possibility for Korean companies to maintain a central role not only in the creation of works, but also in their distribution, commercial valorisation and possible adaptation.
In this context, OTT platforms are assuming growing importance, over the topi.e. services that distribute audiovisual content via the Internet, without necessarily passing through traditional television channels, and in particular domestic operators such as TVING and Wavve, which represent a development environment for original productions and formats also intended for foreign markets.
The MIA, which brings together international producers, distributors, broadcasters, platforms and investors in Rome, offered the opportunity to bring this strategy directly to European interlocutors, through a showcase built not around a generic celebration of Korean success, but around concrete contents and their commercial possibilities.
The initiative is part of the CODE KOREA project, the brand through which KOCCA Italia organizes presentation and business activities, based on the concepts of Culture, Outstanding, Design and Experience.
“We are sure that CODE KOREA will serve as a starting point for co-productions and exchanges between Korea and Italy in the television sector,” he said Stella Heensun Suhdirector of KOCCA Italia.
The agency, which opened an Italian branch in Milan in 2024, already operates in various areas of the creative industries, from fashion to beauty, and with this appointment it strengthens its focus on the audiovisual sector, in which collaboration can concern not only the promotion of Korean productions, but also the development of new industrial opportunities.
CJ ENM and Studio Dragon: three series to explain the strength of the Korean model
The first part of the showcase was entrusted to Diane Min, Head of European Content Sales at CJ ENMwhich presented three titles attributable to the production universe of Studio Dragon, a group company specialized in television series.
The selection is particularly significant because it demonstrates how the competitiveness of the Korean audiovisual sector does not depend on a single narrative genre, but on the ability to express different themes and structures through recognizable serial products.
The Legend of Kitchen Soldiera TVING original, combines comedy, fantasy, military setting and cuisine, telling the transformation of Kang Sung-jae, a young soldier apparently without particular skills who mysteriously acquires an extraordinary culinary talent, transforming barracks food into preparations worthy of a haute cuisine restaurant.
The concept uses an environment strongly linked to the South Korean social experience, that of military service, but reworks it through fantastic elements and mechanics close to the language of video games, building a narrative in which cultural specificity becomes part of the originality of the product.
It’s a completely different sign Dear Xa psychological thriller in which a famous actress, marked by a difficult past and driven by a destructive ambition, manipulates the people around her, while emotional relationships and obsessions become decisive elements in her rise and possible fall.
The series also represents a concrete case of international circulation: after its debut on the Korean TVING platform in November 2025, it reached various markets through services such as HBO Max and Rakuten Viki, demonstrating how a title developed in the South Korean audiovisual ecosystem can be distributed through different partners depending on the territories.
To complete the selection is True Beautya teenage romantic comedy that addresses issues such as bullying, the relationship with physical appearance and self-acceptance through the story of a girl who, thanks to makeup, suddenly becomes popular in her school, but finds herself having to deal with the insecurities she had tried to hide.
Three apparently distant productions, united by the ability to use narrative codes that are understandable even outside Korea without eliminating the cultural elements that define their origin.
According to Diane Min, the strength of Korean productions lies precisely in the possibility of telling culturally recognizable stories through emotions that are understandable to viewers from different countries, a characteristic that CJ ENM intends to enhance by expanding collaborations with European partners.
Betting on Fact: when fake news becomes a game show
If CJ ENM showed the maturity reached by the series sector, the contribution of NEXTKEY brought the comparison to a different terrain, that of unscripted formats, in which the structure of the program can be adapted and reproduced for different markets and audiences.
The project was presented by Jihie Kim, Head of Global Sales & IP Developmentwhich he illustrated Betting on Factan original format launched on the Wavve platform in March 2026 and selected for KOCCA’s OTT production support program.
The mechanism starts from a particularly current premise: eight competitors, isolated and deprived of the possibility of freely consulting their devices, must distinguish authentic news from false information, including that generated through artificial intelligence.
An impostor is also hiding within the group and the participants use an in-game currency, i Fact Coinsto focus on their ratings, in a competition that combines elements of reality, strategy and game show.
The choice of theme is not secondary, because the difficulty of distinguishing authentic content from artificially generated images, news and information represents one of the central issues of the current digital ecosystem, while television can transform this problem into a mechanism of participation and suspense.
The risk of being deceived thus becomes an integral part of the game, but the construction of the format also raises a question about the relationship between entertainment and media literacy, since recognizing fake news does not necessarily equate to understanding its functioning or consequences.
For NEXTKEY, however, the main industrial value lies in the possibility of exporting the structure of the program, adapting the news, cultural references and dynamics to the specificities of individual markets.
“Korean OTT platforms have become a testing ground where courageous ideas can quickly demonstrate their value,” explained Jihie Kim, underlining how Betting on Fact is now offered to European partners interested in developing local versions.
It is an approach that shifts attention from the finished product to the format as intellectual property, capable of generating subsequent adaptations and involving audiovisual companies from different countries.
The real challenge is building collaborations, not just selling series
The industrial significance of CODE KOREA emerges above all from the juxtaposition between the two models presented in Rome, because the seriality of Studio Dragon and the formats of NEXTKEY represent two complementary expansion possibilities.
In the first case, the strength of Korean stories is enhanced through international distribution agreements and productive collaborations, in the second the intellectual property consists of a system of rules, dynamics and narrative mechanisms that can also be re-proposed with competitors, hosts and local content.
This diversification is part of a strategy that already sees CJ ENM engaged in industrial agreements of international scope, such as the multi-year partnership announced in October 2025 with Warner Bros. Discovery, including distribution and co-production of new Korean content also intended for HBO Max.
For Italy and other European countries, the issue therefore does not only concern the acquisition of new series to be included in the streaming catalogues, but the possibility of participating in development processes that integrate skills, investments and production models coming from different audiovisual systems.
Naturally, the presentation of a format to an international market is not equivalent to the conclusion of an agreement, and the objectives announced by KOCCA will have to be confirmed in actual collaborations, but the interest of Korean companies in direct comparison with the European industry signals an increasingly recognizable direction.
The cultural success of Hallyu has demonstrated that South Korean stories can reach very different audiences without having to give up their identity. The next challenge is to transform this capacity into an industrial relations system that allows Korea to remain a protagonist even when stories are developed, produced and told elsewhere.
And it is precisely from this perspective that the Roman meeting acquires importance: the future of Korean entertainment is no longer measured only through the number of people who watch a K-drama, but also through the ability of its companies to participate in the construction of international television.
