There are actors whose faces you recognize but whose names you do not.
When such an actor says in an interview one day, “It took 20 years,” most people are surprised.
The reason those 20 years are 20 years has more to do with the way earnings are calculated than with talent.
3-Line Summary
1. TV actor fees come from a rating table.
2. The average annual income from artistic activities is 1,055만 won per person.
3. What separates incomes is not rating, but the number of appearances.
Actor Moon Seok appeared on tvN’s *You Quiz on the Block*, broadcast on August 5, and spoke about his long period of obscurity. *Sports Kyunghyang* described his career as spanning around 20 years and cited roles such as Jang Ryong in *The Fiery Priest* and Jang Gi-cheol in *The Roundup 2* as representative works.
From here, this is not his story, but the story of how actors are paid.
Fees come not from negotiation, but from a table
Most actors appearing in terrestrial-TV dramas do not set their fees through individual negotiations. There is a standard table created by broadcasters and the Korea Broadcasting Actors’ Union, and each actor is assigned a rating.
According to a *Kyunghyang Shinmun* report, adult actors are divided into ratings 6 through 18. Rating 6 is at the bottom, and rating 18 is at the top. As the rating rises, so does the amount paid per episode.
Under the same report’s standards, the per-episode cap for the top rating, 18, was 188만 4,200 won for a 70-minute miniseries. These are old standards, so current amounts differ. In fact, KBS and the actors’ union revised the amounts by rating when they entered into a new collective agreement in February this year.
What is more notable than the amounts is the structure: even at the top rating, there is a cap, and that cap is discussed at below 200만 won per episode.
Then what are fees of tens of millions of won per episode?
Articles saying that top stars earn fees in the 억-won range per episode appear to conflict with the figures above.
They do not. Lead-level actors negotiate separately outside the rating system. The rating table is used for them elsewhere — when calculating rerun fees.
*Kyunghyang Shinmun* reported that rerun fees for top actors are also set based not on their original appearance fee, but on the rating-table cap. In other words, the original broadcast contract is freely negotiated, but the share paid when the program is aired again follows the table.
So the table’s actual users fall into two groups: the majority of actors who live within the rating system, and the minority who enter the table only when receiving rerun fees.
They are paid for each rerun
Rerun fees are calculated by multiplying the base appearance fee by a percentage. The terrestrial-TV standards summarized by *Kyunghyang Shinmun* are as follows.
| Broadcast | Rate |
|---|---|
| Rerun | 20% of the base appearance fee |
| Third airing | 12% |
| From the fourth airing onward | 10% |
| After 1 a.m. | 7% |
According to the same article, SBS applied lower rates than these.
It is a good system in that a scene filmed once can continue generating income. However, because the amount multiplied is the base appearance fee, if the rating is low, the increase remains small no matter how many reruns there are.
The figure of 1,055만 won
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Culture & Tourism Institute conduct a survey of artists every 3 years. In the 2024 survey, the average annual income earned by one artist from artistic activities was 1,055만 won. That was 360만 won more than 3 years earlier.
There was considerable variation by field. The broadcasting and entertainment field stood above average at 2,485만 won.
In the same survey, 57.4% of artists worked full time, and 76.0% of them were freelancers. Having no affiliation means there is also no income in months without work.
Why it takes 20 years
The key is that the unit is “per episode.”
More than earning little because their rating is low, actors earn little because they appear before the camera only a small number of times a year. Even when cast in a supporting role in a miniseries, the episodes in which they actually appear make up only part of the total. That year’s income is the per-episode amount multiplied by that number of appearances.
That is why the decisive variable in this profession is not rating, but when the next project comes in. The period spent failing auditions is recorded nowhere on the rating table.
A long period of obscurity is less about one’s skills improving late than about having a small number of appearances to multiply for a long time.
What is changing
The artist survey confirms the introduction of standard contracts and rising contract-signing rates. In the 2024 survey discussed above, contract-signing rates in broadcasting and entertainment, film, and theater were higher than in other fields.
The rating table itself is not fixed. Broadcasters and the union renegotiate it periodically, and there are increasing cases of addressing on-site working conditions as well, as in the KBS agreement this February.
When an actor discusses their years of obscurity in an interview, the focus is usually on the resolve it took to endure.
The cost of enduring is written on a table listing how much each episode pays.
Sources
- *Kyunghyang Shinmun* Are appearance fees paid for reruns as well?
- *Sports Kyunghyang* Moon Seok, a thousand faces forged by 20 years of survival
- *Sports Kyunghyang* 2024 Artist Survey — Average annual income of 1055만원 per person
- Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism 2024 Artist Survey