Here comes a Christmas greeting from Seoul! I hope you enjoy the Christmas with many hard gifts under the tree. In Korea, Christmas has developed into a couple’s holiday (compare with Valentine’s Day) which differs pretty much from the Western family oriented way of celebrating.

However, not all guys have the fortunate possibility to spend the night with a girl and the alternative is often to play computer games. The standard answer for someone who does not have a girlfriend when asked about Christmas is usually “I’ll go to PC bang”. PC bangs are Internet cafés available all over Korea and it is a sort of a joke to say that you will do something else than dating.

Of course, this is something many game companies try to make business out of. For example, online games like Granado Espada, Rohan, Seal Online and Yul Yul Gang Ho are all providing special Christmas events. Some chose to provide gifts for finding Christmas trees while others just decorate the world in Christmas style. Yul Yul Gang Ho is maybe the most extreme since they put a drunken Rudolf into the game and he turns into a monster and the person that kills him receive a special item. Welcome to Christmas 2.0…

TU Media has been able to acquire the simultaneous re-transmission rights from MBC according to an interesting article I just read. This represents a big step for TU Media but it comes two and a half years too late.

As TU Media started operations in mid 2005 it tried to acquire simultaneous re-transmission rights from broadcasters. This means that S-DMB viewers would be able to watch popular dramas and shows simultaneously with fixed TV. These contents are considered the most popular on both fixed and mobile TV. However, previously have broadcasters been reluctant to share these contents because they wanted to use it for their own T-DMB service. This is why S-DMB had to focus on other contents like sports and news. But the lack of “killer” contents from fixed TV hindered S-DMB development (as shown in the graphic above). Until today it had been able to acquire approximately 1.26 million subscribers. But according to TU Media they need approximately 2.5 million subscribers to be profitable. As a result, as reported two weeks ago, SK Telecom is thinking about limiting its involvement in TU Media.

But also T-DMB is struggling to build a profitable business. Despite more than seven million T-DMB devices in Korea the advertising revenues are marginal. Which partially is the result of very restrictive legislation on advertising but also broadcasters have failed to develop an attractive mobile advertising value proposition to make this channel more attractive for advertisers.

Experts are blaming policy for allowing two different mobile TV standards and businesses. Their competition was one of the main obstacles that mobile TV could not develop its full potential. So is mobile TV doomed in Korea? I do not think so, because consumers have embraced this new medium and it is very likely that broadcasters will take mobile TV more serious and endeavor to make mobile TV advertising more attractive for broadcasters. Until 2012 more than 20 million T-DMB devices are expected, so mobile TV has a future in Korea. In these days I am finalizing the mobile TV report I have been working on recently, so if you are interested in a more in-depth analysis of the Korean mobile TV market let me know. I am eager to share it with everybody who might be interested.

The TV market is rapidly changing and of course this is notable also in Korea. Mobile TV, IPTV and so on are changing the playground and many changes and merges are to be seen. I’m currently working on a mobile TV report but I just thought I should mention something about IPTV in Korea as well.

One interesting alliance is between KT (Korea Telecom) and Sony. KT launched an IPTV service called Mega TV earlier this summer and is competing with Hana TV from Hanaro and soon also with LG. Sony is, as we know, competing against Wii and XBox 360 on the video game market, a lucrative market in Korea. Therefore, KT and Sony went together and added the feature that the Playstation 3 (PS3) can be used as a set top box for IPTV. This is an interesting approach to promote both new subscribers for KT and an extra teaser to buy PS3 for the gamers. Simply an alliance that provides mutual benefits and it will be interesting to see how it works out. Hopefully it can be another example where Korea becomes a front runner and a test market for something that the world will benefit from some time ahead.