Channel A (TV channel)

History

Dong-A Broadcasting Station (Radio 1963–1980)

Dong-A Broadcasting System (DBS, Hangul: 동아방송) was established on April 25th, 1963.

DBS' first ever TV show and South Korea’s first docudrama, ‘Yeomyeong 80 Years,’ aired every night from 22:15 to 22:35. Since broadcasters at the time were only airing melodramas and soap operas, ‘Yeomyeong 80 Years’ was a radical debut of a new drama genre in South Korean television history. It stopped airing in 1964 and during the same year, the show was made into a six-book novel series and received the Hankook Ilbo Publishing Award. ‘Delightful Livingroom,’ DBS' oldest TV show, was a talk show where different visitors visit the set (“livingroom”) and talk about different topics in humorous, sarcastical, and satirical manners. This show is also considered as South Korea’s first television talk show.

DBS' music programme, ‘Top Tune Show’ was the harbinger of radio Disc Jockey genre in South Korea. Other stations’ music shows at the time were employing professional announcers as their presenters and the producers of the show would do the audio mixing separately. However, ‘Top Tune Show’ first employed an integrated system where a single music-knowledgeable producer do everything from mixing, presenting to adding commentaries. Following ‘Top Tune Show’‘s popularity, similar music-genre programmes such as ‘Dial at 3pm’ and ‘Dial at 0 hour’ debuted. In these programmes, there was a common segment called the ‘Request Corner.’ In this segment, listeners will call in to request their desired song to be played live and this was possible due to DBS retaining a comparably large music library with more than 2000 world music records.

DBS' ‘What do you think?’ is world’s first “town meeting” tv show which started in 1965. It was a live debate show dealing with different political and economical issues. This show was an extremely radical programme considering the oppressive military regime at the time where freedom of press was severely restricted. Furthermore, Hyun-Doo Kang, Seoul National University’s honorary professor and former professor of journalism commented, “DBS will be recorded as the most brave station in the history of broadcasting.”

In 1966, DBS was able to live broadcast the 37th Dong-A Marathon and this was first time to live broadcast a full marathon race in South Korean television history. Furthermore, in 1964, DBS was the first broadcaster in South Korea to build a satellite studio in Midopa Department Store in Myeongdong. In November of 1980, DBS permanently discontinued airing due to the government’s mandatory merger decision and was integrated with KBS (Korean Broadcasing System).

Reality · Entertainment

Drama

Documentary

'X-File, The Food Story's Good-Natured Restaurant

Channel A’s X-File, The Food Story, which began broadcasting on February 10th, 2012, is an investigative crime TV show that deeply delves into the Korean food system and reports on restaurants’ wrongdoings. Moreover, the staff of the show travelled around the country to locate restaurants that provide fresh and delicious food handled properly and safely and bestowed “Good-Natured Restaurant” title to these restaurants. These “Good-Natured Restaurants” became extremely popular and became a huge hype.

In 2013, the viewers of the show suggested to the producers to reverify these restaurants and the producers agreed to this suggestion. For more rational and objective results, a new investigation group was formed, which consisted of 15 people with various different occupations such as college student, food columnist, culinary arts professor, and housewives. The investigation group visited each of the restaurants in the “Good-Natured Restaurant” list and went through a thorough inspection processes.

Newspaper Affiliations

Kyeongin-Ilbo, Kangwon-Ilbo, Daejeon-Ilbo, Kwangju-Ilbo, Jeonbuk-Ilbo, Maeil-Ilbo, Busan-Ilbo, Kyeongnam News, Jeju-Ilbo