Terrestrial broadcasters in Korea reported a sharp decline in advertising revenues in 2014, with KBS and MBC showing the biggest drops.

According to a report by the Korea Broadcast Advertising Corp. on Sunday, KBS’ advertising revenue in 2014 fell 10.9 percent to 522.9 billion won ($475.3 million) from 580 billion won in the previous year.

In the same period, MBC saw an 8.2 percent decrease to 664.8 billion won from 719.2 billion won.

The drop in advertising revenue of the two broadcasters is larger than the decrease experienced by the entire industry. 

The KOBACO report noted that the advertising revenues for all terrestrial broadcasters fell 3.5 percent to 2.06 trillion won in 2014 from approximately 2.14 trillion won in 2013.

Figures for SBS were unavailable because KOBACO does not represent the broadcaster’s advertising deals.

The analysis suggested that the significant decrease was due to changing priorities of advertisers, who are focusing on mobile and new media platforms. 

While terrestrial broadcasters lost ad revenue, Internet and mobile advertisements saw an 11.4 percent increase in the same year. Also, advertising revenue brought in by IPTV and cable networks rose 28.8 percent and 4.8 percent respectively.

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)