SA: (Slight yawn) That was a good round of pickleball.
PM: Indeed it was. I need to stop trying to smash the ball into the corner. It used to be my forte until you and everyone else caught on and now I’m clinging to it like the English longball strategy in soccer.
SA: I got an hour before my bus leaves. What’s on the sports networks?
PM: Yea, we got to research our next episode! Let’s see… I think there’s a baseball post game show on.
SA: Alright, that’s good. We gotta cover the Eagles new stadiuuuummmmm holy hell that’s a lotta leg!
PM: Yup, it’s definitely a baseball show. Speaking of which…Mr. S, you know a little bit about filming, right? Mr. S…? Hello?
SA: Ummm Yeah, I took a video class in high school. Why are you asking-- oh I get it now! You’re wondering how they figured out the exact angle from which they could aim the camera at roughly her hip level without showing her drawers.
PM: I bet there was some geometry involved.
SA: Yeah, yeah…Now that you mention it, it makes sense. You know how when you’re in a restaurant or bar watching the game, right?
PM: Of course. Especially during the baseball season.
SA: You know how the old men up in there be talking the whole time, not really paying that much attention to the game. Then the game’s over and they get up, and then the Baseball Tonight show starts up and they sit down, not saying a word. Ever notice that?
PM: Yeah…Yeah, now that you mention it, it is something I’ve seen before!
SA: Well, this is why. It’s like they’re waiting for the camera or the hostess to drop just that needed 1 degree to get a sneak peak. It’s kinda pervy to be honest.
PM: Well it’s not like they’re tuning in for the guys in the suits. The TVs are either too low or muted.
SA: And so, today’s episode is about (reverb effect) slurs, scandals and the skirts; the Dark Side of Korean Broadcasting.
PM: You can tell by my voice how thrilled I am with my cable plan over this.
History and Networks
SA: As usual we start with a little brush of history before moving to a discussion of the players involved. Though this time it’s a little different.
PM: Why’s that?
SA: We’re not talking about the teams. We’re talking about the TV networks that cover the teams.
PM: That’s right, there are a few, but you’ve reminded me of something important.
SA: What’s that?
PM: The teams here don’t really have their own media setup or local broadcasting rights. Yes, they have their own Youtube channels and Tiktok, and other streaming sites too. But they don’t have their own local cable channels. The idea of a RSN like Diamond Sports or NBC-Bay Area is unheard of here. Probably because of size. They don’t even seem to have home broadcasting teams.
SA: Yeah you won’t find a Gwangju Sports Network or a Gangwon Entertainment System out here. Korea’s certainly big in people but not in land mass. South Korea’s the size of Indiana. But there are local broadcasting networks.
PM: That’s still true even in the era of media consolidation. KBC is a local station that teamed up with SBS the Seoul Broadcast System. The locally owned networks still show their own studio made programs along with the national network. It’s like back home where some slots are for the national network and others are for locally made shows.
SA: So it’s not quite like syndication where your local FOX affiliate will show the network’s stuff for 4 hours in the evening, then one station will run Clint Eastwood movies on Valentine’s Day while another nearby station will run Tyler Perry shows at the same time.
PM: Anyway we were talking about history.
SA: Right, enough comparisons! And now I will start talking about history with a partial comparison!
PM: We are nothing but consistent here *Joke sting*
SA: After the end of the Korean War, and as the sports associations reformed themselves, sports were covered on the radio. TV came into homes in the 1950s but only the rich really had TVs until the late 1960s and early 70s. There were a lot of restrictions from the Park Chun Hee days, back when they even considered coffee a luxury.
PM: Imagine being limited to 2 cups of coffee a week. I mean, I’m making a joke but was it really that bad?
SA: Worse. It was banned in public until 1969. And so were color TVs, which was ironic considering Korea made them. This ban was in place until 1980 as part of the "3s’ policy” of control through entertainment by military dictator Chun Doo Hwan.
PM: That was around the same time many of the pro sports leagues came about, and thus the interest in sports broadcasting took off. Mainly as a way to distract people from the cruelty of the junta, which was the basis of the 3 S Policy, a subject we’ll be discussing before long.
SA: There’s a joke about bread and circuses that’s very apro, uh a pro a pro here.
PM: It’s app pro pro, as it were
SA: That don’t sound right either.
PM: Are we going to spend 15 minutes arguing about the pronunciation of words like those boring Fullbright podcasters do?
SA: No because we’ll probably end the show agreeing on one way and it’ll be completely wrong. *joke sting* And so, we come to today’s world of cable TV sports networks.
PM: Because the broadcast networks only show the national teams, and never the local teams, unless it’s baseball.
SA: On a related note, there’s EBS, which stands for Educational Broadcast System. It’s like a mashup of PBS and the school TV network Channel One. And just like back home, it is hated here.
PM: Wait, Americans hate PBS? I mean, I know those pledge breaks are the worst but Sesame Street and the Electric Company and Masterpiece Theater and Blackadder and…uh, Rick Steves’ Europe?
SA: Not entirely, but there’s one crucial thing missing.
PM: I’m guessing either a lack of sports or a lack of nudity.
SA: Bingo! We’ll unwind that bundle in a moment, but first a little background. There’s a bit of a collusion between the network, the school districts, and the textbook makers in that students have to watch EBS to complete some assignments. Usually it’s EBS2 that has those required programs these days. EBS1 aired a bit of everything, including Transformers Prime, Rugrats, and Regular show. Which I found hilarious because Transformers Prime was one of the most brutal runs of the Transformers series.
PM: This is EBS we’re talking about here. Hell they ran Top Gun and Die Hard uncensored on weekends.
SA: So anyway, when I was teaching summer camp, I checked the news at breaktime and there was an article about a mudslide in Seoul that knocked EBS off the air. I told my students “Hey kids! EBS is gone! It’s been destroyed!” and they didn’t believe me. So I got out the remote, turned on EBS and there was static or the “no signal” message. And the kids started cheering WAAAA, throwing paper balls in the air. This was like their moon landing or something like that!
PM: You know they would probably like it more if EBS showed Korean traditional sports more often. Like Starcraft *Joke sting*
SA: Hahaha they’ve been playing it for so long it should be considered a traditional sport here! Do you remember there used to be two networks dedicated to it?
PM: I didn’t watch a lot of TV when I first moved here, but it certainly felt like it when I was changing channels and there was always a Starcraft match on.
SA: Once the leagues garnered enough attention from fans, the cable TV networks took interest and thus the ESPN style sports leagues came into being.
PM: You got your KBS sports channel, the MBC channel, a buncha SPOTV and SBS channels, TvN, JTBC, the IB pro wrestling channel and Sky Sports. Fortunately in Korea, the networks tend to group channels by subject so once you find one, you quickly find the others. You should know that there are times when many events are happening at once and you’ll get SBS CNBC broadcasting an Olympic game or domestic handball league.
SA: So now, you know all the players. Unfortunately for them, this isn’t a game. It’s a drama.
Slurs segment
PM: And now we’re on to the slurs segment, because when else do you hear about Korean broadcasters, other than when they put their feet in their mouths?
SA: Yes, listeners. Foot-in-mouth disease affects broadcasters worldwide, which can lead to damages to careers if not prevented.
PM: It comes up a lot in kindy’s, so much so the CDC issued-
SA: No no, no. You’re thinking of HFD- hand, foot, and mouth disease. A childhood disease that’ll keep your kid out of daycare for a week.
PM: But shouldn’t the CDC issue a warning to sports broadcasters as well? It should be something basic. A slogan, like I know- quote You can be entertaining without being a dick unquote.
SA: Isn’t that what the training is for?
PM: Assuming they go through it. Do the former players turned announcers ever go through a training program?
SA: Namu Wiki doesn’t seem to think so, but it can be woefully out of date on some things.
PM: So what’s our first slur controversy?
SA: During the Tokyo Olympics, there was a football match between Korea and Romania. Remember how MBC handled their opening ceremony graphics, then was forced to apologize?
PM: Yes they totally learned their lesson…NOT
SA: When Marius Marin of the Romanian team made an own goal in the first half, the broadcast crew put "'Thank you Marin, own goal” in the space below the virtual scoreboard. Naturally, the fans and the Romanians were not happy about the lack of sportsmanship from the South Koreans.
PM: If it were the other way, like when Sweden beat them 12 to nil back in 1948, and the Swedish team ran kimchi jokes across the screen, you know there would be protests in front of the Swedish Embassy. And maybe a thrown meatball or two. But I’m sure MBC has changed its ways, following its slap-on-the-wrist advisory punishment from the KCSC.
SA: Our next slur involves a baseball game announcer reacting to a sign a fan brought to an August 1st SSG Landers game. The sign said 여자라면 최재훈’ or Woman Ramyeon Choi Ji Hoon. Google and Papago translate it as IF it’s a woman Choi Ji Hoon, which doesn’t make any sense either.
PM: So the TV announcer saw the sign and said quote If it’s a woman, I wanna eat it unquote. Naturally KBSNSPORTS and the KCSC were not impressed, leveling sanctions on the announcer and a yellow-card level warning to the network. But I’m confused. Let me ask my wife. Hey honey! Is it ok to read sexist signs on the air during a nationally televised broadcast? (Pause) She said no.
SA: And that is why the network’s broadcast team has to do the 20 hours of sensitivity training like us college professors.
PM: Which MBC announcers would never need to do because they are perfect! (whisper) I’ll only accept payment in crypto!
SA: What did you say?
PM: Uhhh…nothing.
Scandals
PM: We’ve got scandals, because of course we do.
SA: We’re going to start with your favorite source, the Olympics.
PM: But we already talked about those in the Olympics episode in Season 1.
SA: No, we’ve got one related to the 1984 Olympics. I found an article through Naver published at the Kyunghang Shinmun related to viewer complaints about the coverage. Firstly, viewers complained about the lack of live broadcasts. They often missed live broadcasts of the games, they overemphasized Korean athletes-
PM: As usual.
SA: And there was one incident during the award ceremony for wrestlers Kim Won-gi and Yoo In-tak the network was only able to get the audio but no video feed. Finally they got the video for judoka Ahn Byeong-geun’s ceremony but didn’t get it for the flag raising event.
PM: And why’d that go wrong? Didn’t put enough quarters in the machine?
SA: Probably. They had to resort to replays of their matches, well after the papers and radio stations reported their wins.
PM: I wonder if the military government’s censors were cutting the feed to make sure nothing like the Black Panther/Tommie Smith raised fist got caught on TV?
SA: Regimes are run by paranoid people after all. Remember 2016 when the Russians banned COMODO?
PM: The virus software?
SA: Yes, but they also offer SSL certificates. When they banned the site, they also banned their website security services. Which led to-
PM: Ohhh, that’s why they had that bad internet crash!
SA: Yup. Dunno if that was the case here, but the timing’s suspicious if you ask me. Anyway, the viewers also complained about the excessive number of interviews of the winners’ family members.
PM: Probably due to the networks’ inability to buy satellite feed access and having to pay NHK Japan for access.
SA: They were also accused of being lazy and repetitive, and they didn’t have enough Korean commentators. So the viewers got bored.
PM: Who could blame them? Fortunately, they took this as a teachable lesson and improved things by the time the 88 Olympics rolled around. Which by the way, was the first one broadcast in HD. Wait…what?
SA: Yes, the Japanese pioneered an analog video compression method called Hi-Vision and used it at the Olympics. Anyway, there were no controversies or scandals with the Korean broadcasting team at all that olympics. No sir…
PM: None at all. (Whisper) I want to be paid in XRP. NO not that Hawk Tua shit.
SA: You’re mumbling again.
PM: Hahaha, no it’s nothing. Just my phone making noise. Anyway, what other broadcasting scandals should our viewers know about?
SA: Like we talked about back in the Baseball Playoffs episode, TVIng bought the streaming rights from KBO last season.
PM: And they had quality issues at the start of the season.
SA: It took a while for the company to get its act together regarding content delivery and quality. Apparently, some fans felt like TVing never read the contract and the first games they aired had things like blocking logos of the league title sponsors and those of the other broadcasters. They would file copyright complaints against fans who reused content in their youtube videos even though TVing doesn’t necessarily own the copyright, leading to a lot of angry fans. Though I believe some of those issues were resolved outside of courts.
PM: So streaming fans are basically stuck with TVing at this point, huh? They did pay a king’s ransom of 135 billion for 3 years of it. But it seems like TVing worsened the public opinion on their own.
SA: I don’t know if it’s true that fewer new fans will like the league because it’s not for free online anymore. NFL’s not free but it gains fans every year, though I wonder how many of those are diehards Bears fans who watch again in the false hope that this WILL BE their year! But anyway, Naver sports had some fan functionality with their broadcasts that TVing hasn’t done.
PM: Like what?
SA: Favorite team notifications and filtered cheering sections. Stuff like that. I don’t think Coupang Play or Amazon do it either, which is a disadvantage of streaming sites that don’t have other functions like the portal sites do. And then there was the national anthem incident.
PM: On March 8th, the network showed the lineup as the national anthem was sung and the announcers had to read the names. This is sports broadcasting 101; don’t run anything during the anthems.
SA: Sports broadcasting 102; don’t run the wrong sport when broadcasting a different sport. Twice in March during baseball games, the feeds flipped to volleyball games.
PM: I think the studio cat got in and walked on the keyboard. And that’s why I own a dog! *joke sting*
SA: And now we go to an amusing scandal that’s probably still ongoing. Last year, NK News reported on the KCTV, pyongyang’s official tv channel, pirating Premier League games. Did they show the teams with Korean players? Nope, although they had a Kim Min-Jae highlight show in February.
PM: But how do they get around the advertising and logos? Especially all the beer logos.
SA: By blurring or black barring anything, and replacing some logos with the KCTV logo. But the article also mentioned that in the past, North Koreans living abroad would ship recordings of games to the network leading to a quote “weird and incoherent melange” unquote.
PM: We should have some fun with this.
SA: Yes lets.
PM: So let’s say for the argument that Chelsea player Levi Colwill got traded to Everton on the 30th of December. And that Chelsea versus Everton happened on November 14th and again on January 5th. If you’re watching both games live on January 5th on KCTV and Coupang Play, you would see Levi on the field for both teams at the same time. What if he scored a goal at the same time in both games?
SA: Man, I would be looking at my liquor collection and wondering Did I buy a bottle of Absinthe by mistake?! Then again, if I’m watching KCTV then my mind’s already fried like a McDonald’s hash brown! *joke sting*,
PM: Anyway, since we’re on the subject of sports broadcasting, what happened at SBS Sports?
SA: Yeah, they used to be big on soccer but now they’ve even lost League 1. What do they even have these days that’s international?
PM: Speed skating?
SA: Pretty much. Maybe they’ll apply for another sport but I’m not holding out hope. But I think it’s time to segway into the next topic.
Broadcasting Rights Issues
PM: Basically a lot of the problems with sports broadcasting comes down to the issue of media rights. If you sell to 1 company, you kinda kneecap the competitors. Even though this never seems to be much of an issue in other countries. As an aside, please give a listen to our episode on the Olympics to hear more about Korea’s oddball arrangement of shared broadcasting of those events - and the ghastly practices on the part of at least one network during the opening ceremonies.
SA: There’s also the matter of the power balance. Back when the baseball league was struggling, they had trouble with the broadcasters who really only put effort into broadcasting Jamsil stadium games on Saturday afternoon.
PM: A lot of that was due to the spike in interest in football after the world cup, but then SBS started broadcasting Yorimuri Giants and MLB games.
SA: Yorimuri? Why did they broadcast those games?
PM: Song Byeong-gyu played for them and Chunichi in 2007, along with Lee Seung-yeop. After the team’s finish in the 2006 World Baseball Classic, interest in baseball revved up again, but SBS ignored Song Jin-Woo’s 200th win to broadcast the NPB game. The old days were a huge mess of 3rd party rights holders, DMB channel options, and streaming deals with AfreecaTV.
SA: And now my head hurts. These issues haven’t quite resolved themselves in that baseball fans who don’t want to pay for TVing have to use their VPN to log into SOOP which is what AfricaTV became.
PM: But it’s not just baseball that has had issues. A few years ago according to the Korea Times, SBS ran into an issue with bidding for the rights to the Korean Ladies PGA tour, with CJ Group complaining that it wasn’t fair for the tour to limit the bids to networks that had golf-only channels like JTBC and SBS. In the end, SBS won the bid and they created a second golf channel for the men’s tour.
SA: Which we only watch when they show overflow football matches.
PM: There seems to be a tinge, or hell the whole paint bucket, of collusion and quid pro quo in obtaining broadcasting rights, it seems.
SA: Especially in regards to the national team. The football federation is managed by Chung Mong-Gyu, who is also planning to run for the office for the 4th time. Unfortunately, his hiring decisions have made him hated in the eyes of Red Devils fans. It got to the point where fans set up banners calling for him to be fired at a March 21st game against Thailand. There was footage of security teams taking down the banners. Where he enters the broadcasting picture is his family ties with the Hyundai chaebol and his being the chairman of the development company as well.
PM: Too many hands in too many pots!
SA: Not saying anything is untoward with that, but it should be noted that Ulsan Hyundai has been a winning team for the past 3 years. But anyway, koreapro wrote a detailed article about how there can be pros and cons with the non-profit association being as tied-in with a single conglomerate. A bit of this is related to broadcasting rights and player availability. I don’t know how much authority an association head has over the sports leagues under him, but a bossy manager who owns a company that also has a TV or streaming network could make it difficult for a competitor’s network to secure rights.
PM: But that doesn’t seem to be the case for the K-League since Coupang is not owned by a chaebol. For now anyway.
SA: True, but we should remember that broadcasting rights expire over the course of time. But fundamentally, now is a good time for the KFA to make decisions like this more transparent so suspicion is averted.
PM: Yeah but are they going to listen to some bloggers and podcasters?
SA: No, but remember; there are more choices than in 1988. If we get annoyed and boycott the league, so will the fans, and they’ve got a LOT of other leagues to watch on lots of other networks.
PM: And speaking of networks, we need to talk about the skirts.
Skirts
SA: Just like back home, the networks host postgame shows and sports talk shows. But there’s a slight difference.
PM: Yes, though the viewers wouldn’t call it slight.
SA: Here in Korea, the networks mostly run live sports, depending on which package they have. When the leagues aren’t playing, they run replays, Song Heun Min analysis, and things like that. To the best of my knowledge, there aren’t many talking-head pundit shows here like Around the Horn or First Take.
PM: No, there aren’t and this lack of Steven Smiths and Don Cherrys is a definite plus. There’s an effort to keep it all civil and light as though they may actually be aware that it’s just sports they’re discussing at the end of the day.
SA: Hmmm, I know someone who could do with similar advice…
PM: Do you now? Oftentimes those people just can’t be reached. Instead of entertaining/wildly frustrating opinion segments, we get much more rational discussions, almost always with a very attractive girl posing questions to a panel of experts. While the talk is respectful, the downside is they lack pizazz.
SA: I’m inclined to agree. So in Korea, they have 1-sport focused shows with a…uh, MC, I guess, and a former player or two.
PM: We’re assuming that’s the MC’s role, especially on the baseball shows, since they aren’t former players or coaches or historians sans journalists.
SA: I mean, that’s OK I guess. You don’t have to be a baseball expert to run a baseball TV show, especially when your co-hosts are, or at least they should be.
PM: But their on-air clothing sure doesn’t say so. The woman who hosts is always the one wearing the shortest miniskirt legally allowed by the broadcasting regulations and they make her sit on a high stool so she needs long heels to even touch the floor. It’s super sexist and whatsmore I’m not sure it’s even all that titillating.
SA: Yeah my wife constantly complains about it. Why does the female host have to show as much skin whereas the men have to wear 3 piece suits, yet they’re the ones demonstrating the sports and the host barely moves at all? Plus them studios have to be kept cool or cold so the men aren’t sweating the whole time, which means they’re probably a bit cold as well.
PM: It also makes me feel like the point of the show isn’t to learn about baseball; it’s to stare at a woman’s skirt for an hour. On Namu Wiki, the contributors talked about how Choi Hee’s beautiful appearance quote devastated unquote the male focused websites and fan boards with tons of GIFs of her when she started in 2010. She took over after the previous host Kim Seok-ryu got married to Hanhwa star player Kim Tae-Gyun. Over time, they called her quote the baseball goddess unquote.
SA: At least they got the gender right for the nickname, whereas throughout their article they kept writing he instead of she.
PM: None of them were OUR students, listeners. That ain’t our fault! *joke sting*
SA: See what happens when you don’t pay attention in English class?! Podcasters will make fun of your elementary school mistakes. Anyway, despite being stuck in an unnecessary short skirt, the hosts seem to be quite knowledgeable in the sports they cover. At least THEY do their homework!
PM: Or their team does for them.
SA: Yeah, students! See the benefit of doing your homework! You won’t sound lost on the air like Dennis Miller did when he called Monday Night Football a long time ago!
PM: Tell me again how black people aren’t smart enough to be quarterback, Rush Limbaugh? Please cite the sources you didn’t pull out of a Klan meeting.
SA: Please explain your expert analysis as to why Kobe isn’t top 5, ChatGPT programmers! Or was that another quote hallucination of the model unquote?
PM: As we move past the American sports pundits we don’t like, we must segway to a tragedy involving a Korean sports announcer. In 2011 MBC announcer Song Ji-seon of Baseball Tonight committed suicide after reports of her relationship with Doosan’s Lim Tae-hoon came out on Cyworld. He denied the relationship and she got peppered with hate mail, then she got sacked by the network.
SA: After she died, a website was made denigrating Lee over his denial and her death. It got so bad that portal sites like Naver had to block comments on articles with him in them. And then the social media addicts got mad when the mainstream media pointed the finger for her death at the abuse some nutbars hurled at her.
PM: Shame culture is a huge problem here. Back home, only a few people would care if a reporter dated a player. But if a gaming reporter dated a game company executive, hoooo watch out! That’s a sin greater than the bombing of Aleppo by the Russians! *Joke sting*
SA: Kids starving in South Sudan? Meh. A reporter dating a player? REEEEEE!
PM: What else does this situation remind you of?
SA: The quote uncle fans unquote of K-pop singers. They’re essentially perverted stalkers, who call their affection for the singer at the same level of an uncle caring about a niece or a nephew. Don’t you just love the creepy euphemisms for their obsessions?
PM: So anyway, the shows most famous for the shortest skirts tends to be Baseball Tonight and I love Baseball.
SA: Since I don’t have cable, my only interactions with the show are when I’m near a TV with a sports plan. But I seem to recall that 10 years ago, Baseball Tonight had a table where the hosts sat around, but now it doesn’t have a table, just stools.
PM: I get that it’s easier to do swing demonstrations without a table in the way, but can they at least lower the stools a bit? The hosts’ legs have got to be aching from sitting all the way at the edge just to touch the ground.
SA: It’s not a bad show, at least content-wise. They talk about baseball and do demonstrations of techniques with former players. What more can you ask for?
PM: (sound enthusiastic) MBC Sports has the best postgame shows in the business! (Whisper) I said what you wanted, now double my price.
SA: You’re mumbling again.
PM: Uh, that wasn’t me! That was my…TV.
Worst Person in the sports world
PM: Oh it’s that music again!
SA: Yup listeners, it’s that time of the week. We’ve found more people who piss us off. The Worst Persons in the Korean Sports World. The Nap Award goes to… The KFA, again! This week their presidential election scheduled for next week was postponed due to transparency issues. According to the KoreaTimes, all eight members of the committee resigned last Friday while facing allegations of harboring bias toward Chung Mong-gyu, the current president who’s also seeking a fourth term.
PM: To the surprise of no one, I might add. When’s their election supposed to happen now?
SA: February, hopefully. Normally, these inside baseball issues shouldn’t matter much to fans but Chung is hated by the fans and is under scrutiny for the hiring of the national team’s coach. If they don’t resolve this soon, the Ministry of Sports will take action.
PM: I also heard they want the National Election Commission to run their election. That’s like the YMCA asking the state election board to run their manager race. It shouldn’t happen!
SA: Well said! The Radon award goes to the Indonesian Men’s football team leadership for firing coach Shin Tae-Yeong. According to reports in the Sports Chosun, the reason for the firing was Coach Shin’s inability to get the team into the World Cup, but 2 days later the team hired Dutch coach Patric Clawibert. Ostensibly because they wanted someone who speaks Dutch like their naturalized players.
PM: This is especially annoying because the association gave Shin an unilateral contract and told him don’t worry about the results since the national team’s average age is 20 years old.
SA: And he has been bringing in results! He led the team to victory against South Korea in the Mitsubishi Cup in 2019, and a slew of other victories to raise the team’s ranking by 50 countries. He was making progress and they dropped him just like that!
PM: Goes to show that the international coaching world is a fickle beast. As they said, coaches are hired to be fired.
SA: Finally the plutonium award goes to KCC coach 전창진 for blaming the team’s woes on their foreign players. In reports published on OhMyNews a week ago, Coach Jeon apologized to the KOREAN players after the 3 game losing streak, saying that it was his fault for picking the foreign players. Needless to say, the article writer was not impressed.
PM: That’s what happens when you pick a player like Burton that’s known for his offense to play a largely defensive role! Laguna was the anchor of the team, and they didn’t think to get a similar player? That’s like replacing Shaq with Pritchard and complaining that he can’t post up big players like Yao Ming.
SA: What’s worse is Burton and Leon played well against Meraclo Bolts in the EASL superleague match a month ago. In fact they were instrumental in the comeback win! So why is the coach complaining now?!
PM: Not only that, the team’s had a lot of injuries and so they’re down a bit in depth. But I get the feeling that’s not the only problem.
SA: Lemmie…Lemmie pull up the stats from the New Year’s Game. Burton: 1 for 7 including 3 missed 3s, but perfect 4 of 4 from the line. Heo Ung: 19 points, 4 fouls, 4 of 11 from 3. Jun Beom: 7 points, 1 of 7 from 3, 2 turnovers, 3 rebounds. Bench players Leon; 15 minutes, 4 points, Yeon Jun; 10 minutes no points and a turnover. Yell at Burton all you want but he ain’t the only sorry ass on the team!
PM: If the coach gave a speech blaming me for the losing streak when all the other players are making more turnovers than me, I might hit him in the face with the basketball.
SA: It gets worse. Burton got traded to Red Boosters, and led his new team in points on January 10th. And that’s why Coach Jeon is the WORST PERSON! IN THE SPORTS WORLD!
Ending
SA: Thanks for tuning in today! We hoped you learned something new about Korean sports!
PM: I certainly did! Please share this podcast with your friends & family, anyone you think would be interested in irreverent takes on Korean Sports.
SA: Especially give this to rookies. They need alllll the help they can get.
PM: Don’t forget to rate our podcast 5 stars of course. But don’t do it if you don’t like us.
SA: You can email the show at hwatingsportspodcast at gmail.com or leave a comment on our various podcast sites. Hate mail will be read aloud on special episodes and ruthlessly mocked.
PM: Fan mail will be mocked but in a more wholesome way.
SA: Our next episode will be on the 31st of January and we’re talking about obscure rules in sports culture!
PM: All the cross-cultural landmines and potholes will be covered here.
SA: Speaking of cultures, we’d like to give a shoutout to our listeners in…uh, gonna try my best to say this right, TIRR-oo-və-NUN-təp-OOR-əm in Kerala India!
PM: Home of the Magic Planet Theme Park!
SA: Music notes like the opening song thanks to DumiAFava. Cover art thanks to our live-in cycling expert James! Until next time, Korean sports fans!
PM: Guests of the Hwa-ting sports podcast dine at Cafe Hurl, Metro Daegu’s finest 24 hour, barista-free coffee house. The old school coffee mix flavour is a favourite among the town’s conservatives who long for a time when men worked like dogs for crusty employers, women pumped out babies and the government ruled over the land with an iron fist. “Embezzlement is good for the economy!”, they exclaim proudly. “Paid family leave is for sissies!” Sit back and relax in the warm atmosphere of outdated political talk and coffee that tastes like diesel oil mixed with a metric tonne of sugar. Cafe Hurl: where the seventies are back to crush the longhairs!
Notes
TVing poor quality broadcasts
Mocking Romania Olympic soccer game
Some details on I Love Baseball
Calls for reform in team funding with mention of broadcast rights
Broadcaster suspended and network fined for reading a fan’s stupid sign
North Koreans bootlegging Premier League games
Sports Broadcaster Suicide in 2011
[century] Korea's TV Age Began With KBS in 1962
Something about pro baseball broadcast rights controversies in the 2000
https://www.sportschosun.com/sports/2025/01/20-year-old-is-allowed-to-participate-but-43426
Translation of the 1984 Olympics article about how bad the Korean broadcasts were.
During the LA Olympics, TV viewership and operating rates increased significantly, but viewers were dissatisfied that the game broadcasts did not meet expectations. According to MBC's investigation, they had a special Olympic broadcast time six times a day from dawn to night starting on the 29th of last month, and the operating rate of viewers who turned on their TVs increased to a maximum of 83.96% (excluding late night) for MBC and KBS combined.
The peak time was 7:45 PM (KBS) and 8:30 PM (MBC) during “Here is LA” (KBS1) and “Today’s Olympics” (MBC), with an 83.96% utilization rate, followed by 7 to 8 AM with 46.96%, 3 to 5 PM with 33.2%, 10 to 12 AM with 31.74%, and 6 to 7 AM with 28.19%.
The broadcast program with the highest viewership ratings between the two broadcasting stations so far was the opening ceremony broadcast for 4 hours starting at 8 AM on the 29th, recording a viewership rating of approximately 73%, and the broadcast on the afternoon of the 2nd, when Kim Won-gi won the gold medal, recorded a viewership rating of 49%.
An MBC official said, "It was notable that TV operation in the mornings was higher than usual, and early evening operation was slightly higher," and added, "The operation rate and viewership ratings were at their peak until the 3rd, but they gradually decreased after that."
In particular, MBC showed a phenomenon where existing entertainment programs such as dramas were stronger than on weekdays. Meanwhile, according to KBS, which investigated the viewership ratings after 5 PM, "Here is LA" from 7:45 PM to 9 PM showed a viewership rating of 30%, which is 5-10% higher than usual.
The average viewership rating for the entire broadcast program was maintained at around 40%. Also, the average operating rate was tallied at 50%, which is 10% points higher than the usual 40%.
Although the viewer ratings and TV operating rate increased, the overall game broadcast was disorganized and fell short of expectations, such as missing the live broadcast, drawing complaints from viewers.
Even in the live broadcast of the gold medal award ceremony, which is the yolk of the Olympic broadcast, only the scene of the award ceremony for Ha Hyung-ju in judo, who won the third award, was properly broadcast, while for wrestling athletes Kim Won-gi and Yoo In-tak, only the audio was broadcast, and for judo athlete Ahn Byeong-geun, the mistake of not showing the Taegeukgi raising scene was made.
In the end, their matches were broadcast live after being recorded, and the same was true for boxing's Shin Jun-seop and archery's Seo Hyang-soon.
This Olympic broadcast also ▲ lack of commentary and commentary by the casters ▲ passive programming and production that focused too much on the Korean games rather than the overall flow of the Olympics ▲ excessive competition with interviews with the winners' families, etc., making it uniform and repetitive, making viewers bored.
Despite paying a huge amount of broadcasting fees, they were unable to secure a satellite, so they filled the time with recorded films. Then, due to a barrage of protests from viewers, they belatedly negotiated with Japan's NHK and Netcom and ended up broadcasting it live, thus incurring unnecessary expenses. Furthermore, as a country that will be hosting the Olympics in the future, they should have shown the overall picture of the Olympics, but they were unable to show a special feature like this. There is a growing voice in the broadcasting industry that they should learn from the mistakes of this Olympic broadcast and hurry up and train professional sports broadcasters in preparation for the Seoul Olympics.
[Reporter Kim Yang-sam]