KBS한국방송공사

KBS (한국방송공사, the Korean Broadcasting System) is South Korea's national public broadcaster and one of its three terrestrial networks, with MBC and SBS.⁴ It traces its history to the Gyeongseong Broadcasting Station, set up by the Japanese colonial government on February 16, 1927, and it adopted its present role as a public-oriented broadcaster on March 3, 1973.¹ Its headquarters are on Yeouido in Seoul. The flagship channel KBS1 (channel 9) carries no advertising and is funded by the licence fee; KBS2 (channel 7) is entertainment-oriented; and KBS World broadcasts abroad in 12 languages. Wikipedia puts the mandatory ₩2,500 television licence fee at around 49% of KBS's revenue and advertising at 18.7%.¹

KBS dramas hold five of the 16 places in DabPop's ranking of the highest-rated K-dramas. KBS2's weekend drama First Love (첫사랑) is second, with a 65.8% finale in April 1997 and a 52.6% average over 66 episodes; KBS1's 200-episode period drama Taejo Wang Geon (태조 왕건, 2000–02) reached 60.2%.² Among dramas adapted from webtoons, KBS2's My Lawyer, Mr. Jo (동네변호사 조들호, 2016) ranks third at 17.3%.⁵ KBS2's Descendants of the Sun (태양의 후예) finished filming on December 30, 2015, 56 days before it premiered.³

In 1981 KBS and MBC announced the end of the exclusive contracts that had tied actors and screenwriters to a single network.³ After Netflix launched in South Korea in January 2016, KBS, MBC and SBS at first informally agreed not to sell it newly aired series; that ended in 2018, when SBS sold The Hymn of Death.⁴