Local broadcasters MBC, JTBC continue forays into NFTs

South Korean broadcasters are seeking to expand their platforms with non-fungible tokens.

Attempting to turn the highly popular “Infinite Challenge” intellectual property into NFT artwork, terrestrial broadcaster MBC is holding a special exhibition to showcase its NFT project.

Inspired by popular “Infinite Challenge” episodes, South Korea’s longest running and most successful variety show, the artworks present well-known scenes from the show.

Drawn by artist Seong Tae-jin, who graduated from Hongik University with a degree in printmaking, the images show the hosts dressed in a black suit and wearing masks featuring famous cartoon characters, including Darth Vader, Ironman, Batman and Taekwon V, a well-known South Korean robot character.

The broadcaster had a successful NFT collaboration with artist LAYLAY in April, reproducing “Infinite Challenge -- Extreme Part-time Job” episodes into 20 different characters who represent people working in extreme jobs in South Korea.

The offline exhibition of the NFT artworks, which started on Thursday, runs through May 29 at MBC Smart Center in Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul. The NFTs can be bought for 3,000 Klay coins at the official ArtToken website. Klay is the cryptocurrency created by Kakao Corp.

Meanwhile, local cable channel JTBC signed a memorandum of understanding on creating NFTs with a technology media company Publish on Thursday.

The companies are set to apply blockchain technology to the broadcast industry, seeking to create a new system of rewarding people who provide newsworthy tip-offs with an NFT.

“Giving NFTs to people who provide important tip-offs is a significant way of giving the informant digital value of the news. The short clip of the news will be reproduced as an NFT,” a JTBC official told The Korea Herald on Monday.

The cable channel previously created 39 copies of special NFTs based on the romance series “Thirty-Nine” in the digital art market BeWings in March, which were sold out within 8 minutes of their release.

By Lee Si-jin (sj_lee@heraldcorp.com)