Koreans' overall intent to attend cultural and artistic events has declined, with pop music and entertainment emerging as the only category to post gains, a government survey showed. Intent to view theater performances fell by roughly half over the past decade.
According to the National Cultural and Artistic Activities Survey released Wednesday by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST), 69.6% of respondents said they intended to attend a cultural or artistic event within the next year. The survey polled 10,040 people aged 15 and older nationwide from August to November last year. The figure marks a 14.7 percentage-point drop from 84.3% in 2016.
By category, viewing intent declined across most genres, with the exception of pop music and entertainment.
Theater showed the sharpest decline, falling from 20.1% in 2016 to 10.1% last year. Traditional performing arts, including gugak, pungmul and folk plays, dropped from 10.8% to 5.8% over the same period, while dance declined from 3.2% to 1.8%.
Intent to attend literary events also fell, from 6.9% to 3.1%. Art exhibitions dropped from 16.1% to 10.7%, and Western music from 6.7% to 4.1%.
Interest in musicals also declined. Although Korea's creative musical "Maybe Happy Ending" recently swept six Tony Awards, drawing attention to the competitiveness of K-musicals, actual viewing intent slipped from 19.7% in 2016 to 15.4% last year.
Film, which maintained the highest viewing intent, was not spared from the downward trend. Intent to watch films dropped from 78.5% to 55.4%.
In contrast, pop music and entertainment was the only category to rise. Viewing intent in the segment climbed from 23.5% in 2016 to 29.6% last year.
"As the K-pop and popular entertainment industries have played a central role in spreading the Korean Wave, public interest appears to have grown alongside them," culture critic Ha Jae-keun said, citing the global popularity of BTS and "K-Pop Demon Hunters" as key factors. "The decline in film viewing largely reflects the spread of OTT platforms, while performing arts such as musicals, which involve higher costs, may have been affected by the economic slowdown and weakened consumer spending," he added.
