On August 21, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency held a plenary meeting of the expert committee for the 'Content Industry Classification and Research System Study for Future Response' to accurately reflect the structure and business models of the content industry in official statistics.

Some 50 experts from the content industry and academia, alongside researchers from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency, attended the meeting. They shared the outcomes of sector-specific discussions that had been ongoing since May and reviewed directions for improving the content industry classification and research systems.

The expert committee consists mainly of industry and academic experts across key sectors, including ▲ music and publishing, ▲ webtoons, animation, and characters, ▲ broadcast video, film, and advertising, and ▲ games, knowledge information, and content solutions.

Over the course of 20 meetings spanning four months since May, the participants intensively examined business structures by industry, terms commonly used in the field, comprehension of business surveys, and response convenience. The opinions presented in each sector discussion were then synthesized through subcommittee chair meetings.

At the plenary meeting, based on the discussions held so far, opinions were gathered on the direction of improving the classification system so that it can capture the overall content industry while preserving individual industrial characteristics.

Rather than dividing all content sectors by uniform criteria, the committee agreed to flexibly reflect the characteristics of each sector by considering the industry value chain and business structure. Where multiple functions are integrated in the field, they decided not to over-fragment them, while ensuring that sectors with independent business structures clearly display their unique traits.

In particular, the committee plans to devise improvement proposals so that emerging businesses based on platforms, intellectual property (IP), and digital technology can also be tracked through clear definitions and survey questions while minimizing the complexity of the classification system. The core objective is to build a statistical framework that reflects industrial changes in a timely manner while enhancing actual business comprehension and response convenience.

Based on the feedback collected from the expert committee, the Korea Creative Content Agency plans to finalize the content industry classification system, definitions by business type, and research system improvements, and utilize them for future content industry survey reorganizations and related statistical policy formulation.

Director Kim Yun-ji of the Korea Creative Content Agency stated, "Given that the boundaries of business areas in the content industry are rapidly shifting due to the convergence of platforms, intellectual property (IP), and technology, it is crucial to continuously incorporate voices from the field into our statistics." Director Kim added, "Now that the industry, academia, and the government have thoroughly discussed the matter through this committee, we will build a statistical system that more faithfully illustrates the current state and changing patterns of the content industry based on these insights."