Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) is pushing to overhaul its classification and survey system to reflect in statistics the content industry's structure, reshaped by platforms, intellectual property (IP) and AI.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KOCCA said on Sept. 7 they reviewed improvement plans at a full meeting of an expert committee for the "Study on the content industry classification and survey system for future preparedness" held on Aug. 21 at the CKL Corporate Support Center in Seoul.

The meeting was attended by about 50 people, including researchers from the ministry and KOCCA and experts from the content industry and academia. Participants shared discussions held by sector since May and took an overall look at content industry classification criteria and survey methods.

The expert committee consists of industry and academic specialists across 4 areas: music and publishing; webtoons, animation and characters; broadcasting video, film and advertising; and games, knowledge information and content solutions. The committee held 20 meetings over about 4 months to discuss business structures by sector, terminology used in the field, and companies' understanding of the survey and ease of response.

In the discussions, participants agreed that rather than applying the same criteria uniformly across all content areas, the system should reflect each industry's value chain and business structure. The approach is to avoid excessive subdivision in areas where multiple functions are integrated within a single company, and to classify areas with independent business structures so their distinct characteristics are reflected.

KOCCA plans to supplement industry definitions and survey questions so new types of businesses that have emerged based on platforms, IP and digital technology can also be captured in statistics. The focus is on preventing the classification system from becoming overly complex while making it easier for surveyed companies to understand and respond to questions.

KOCCA plans to make a final整理 of improvements to the content industry classification system, definitions by business category and the survey system, based on the committee's views. It plans to use them in future overhauls of content industry surveys and in establishing statistical policies.

KOCCA President Yunji Kim (김윤지) said, "The content industry is seeing rapid changes in the boundaries of business areas as platforms, intellectual property and technology converge, so it is important to continuously reflect voices from the field in statistics." She added, "We will build a statistical system that can faithfully show the industry's current 모습 and patterns of change."