Some korean actors getting paid too much?

According to industry sources, some korean actors and actress are getting paid as high as USD 150,000 per episode.

This high star price tags is raising a problems regarding K-drama production and creating a buzz among korean netizens

Hallyu wave and the drama boom has put a lot of focus on casting 'top stars' for high prices and cutting costs elsewhere (staff pay) to be able to cast them. In the end, half of the production costs end up going towards paying the stars, an unnatural balance compared to American and Japanese productions.

Even if a drama flops, stars’ asking prices continue to soar. It’s not as though market theory applies, and those prices keep rising, defying logic. Even when a drama meets with crushing failure, hurting the production company behind it, a star’s fee still climbs.

These days, the production environment for dramas is sliding into extreme decline. Although the star fees rise, there is a rapid decrease in those willing to invest or enter into product placement agreements.

Furthermore, production costs are shooting up, and aside from a few exceptions, there are numerous dramas that pull in ratings less than single digits. For this reason, there are some outside production houses that produce one or two, then disappear.


In such a serious situation, K-movie and drama markets may fall into decline, giving rise to the argument that the drama industry is headed for crisis point.

Many drama PD of MBC,SBS,KBS insisting that High asking price of some of stars usually result in quality drop of K-dramas because they get to spend too much on casting those stars leaving them less money to invest on producion of drama itself.