[WHY] The rise of Korea's female weathercaster

A scene from Netlix hit ″The Glory″ (2022-2023) shows its main antagonist Park Yeon-jin, played by Lim Ji-yeon, delivering the weather news in a rain coat. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
“A fog advisory has been issued today, continuing from yesterday,” says Park Yeon-jin, the main antagonist of the Netflix hit “The Glory” (2022-2023), in a clear, cheerful voice.
 
Park, played by Lim Ji-yeon, is a tall weathercaster dressed in formfitting clothes and high heels during forecasts. Her portrayal reflects a common image of weathercasters in Korea, which is often associated with semi-celebrity status.
 

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However, beneath the glamor of the job lies a darker side, which has come under scrutiny following the tragic death of MBC weathercaster Oh Yoanna in September of last year.
 
Oh was belatedly revealed to have died by suicide after reportedly enduring workplace bullying, drawing attention to the harsh realities many weathercasters face.
 
“To become a weathercaster, it’s not enough to excel in just one area. Everything has to align — from the image employers want to the candidate’s background and how well they present the forecast,” a 30-year-old former freelance M.C. and radio traffic reporter, who once dreamed of becoming a weathercaster, told the Korea JoongAng Daily.
 

The late MBC weathercaster Oh Yoanna delivers the forecast in an undated photo. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
Despite the high standards expected of weathercasters, the job itself can be unstable — a double-edged sword for many. While securing such a position at a broadcast station can offer more media opportunities, its freelance nature means a lack of protection, as seen in the case of the late Oh, who likely could not access the same support as her full-time colleagues.
 
Yet, the competition for such positions remains fierce.
 
Hundreds — sometimes even thousands — of candidates may vie for a single spot. This raises the question: What makes the role of weathercaster so appealing, especially to women in Korea?
 
Since when have women dominated Korea's weather news?


The dominance of female weathercasters in Korea began in 1991, when Lee Ik-seon, a former TV reporter, appeared as the country’s first female weathercaster. She worked for KBS until 2006.
 
Before Lee’s appearance, the field was strictly male-dominated. As early as 1965, when the first weather forecasts passed through Korean radio waves, men were delivering the nation's in-depth meteorological news, all of whom were employed by what is now the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). The late Kim Dong-wan, widely considered the country’s first professional weather forecaster, was a KMA official, delivering the weather first via radio and then via television through the now-defunct TBC in the 1970s and MBC starting in 1982. Kim used diagrams, hand-drawn on paper, to aid his presentations. 
 

Kim Dong-wan, Korea's first weathercaster, was known for presenting the weather using hand-drawn diagrams. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, male meteorologists continued to dominate the field. Cho Seok-joon, a former KMA chief, worked as one of the few weathercasters at KBS from 1987 to 2001. He initially began his career there as a reporter specializing in weather after studying meteorology and serving in the military as a weather officer, and briefly worked in public relations before returning as a weathercaster.
 
At the time, television channels were exclusively the domain of public broadcasters like MBC and KBS. “Broadcast stations needed people who could thoroughly analyze meteorological data and deliver it,” said Maeng So-yeong, a meteorology columnist and chief of the climate lab and academy Weather Communications. “It was a very specialized field.”
 
Consequently, it was believed that such positions should be reserved for people with credentials in meteorology — a field that, like many areas of science and technology, has been heavily male throughout its history.
 
Women’s participation in the media industry was also limited at the time. By 2003, only about 10 percent of employees at public broadcasters KBS, MBC and SBS were women, according to the Korean Women's Development Institute.
 

Lee Ik-seon, Korea's first female weathercaster, delivers the weather news on Sept. 12, 2004. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
That has changed in the 22 years since. Of the 43 incumbent weathercasters across nine broadcasting stations — including three public broadcasters and two news channels — only one is a man.
 
Part of that was a numbers game. KBS' viewership reportedly rose after Lee Ik-seon began appearing, demonstrating to the network and its competitors, that women could do the job — and that an endearing appearance and presentation style could benefit it just as much as scientific degrees.
 
But Maeng also believes the trend reflects a media environment that is, among other things, increasingly cutthroat. The launch of four new broadcasting stations — JTBC, TV Chosun, Channel A and MBN — in 2011, along with the rise of other cable channels since, has made competition for limited viewership fiercer than ever. That's notwithstanding the rise of smartphone apps that can now deliver weather information at a single glance. These days, “few people watch television specifically for the weather forecast,” Maeng said.
 
That's pushed broadcast companies to cut costs across the board, diverting resources away from reporting roles in general — and those of the weathercaster in particular. Weathercasters, unlike journalists on other beats, are now largely freelancers, who are paid by appearance rather than receiving a set salary. 


This change in structure has coincided with a rising number of women choosing self-employment or freelance work over full-time contracts in Korea. Some 71 percent of public broadcasting freelancers were women as of 2020, according to a Korea Labor & Society Institute study. The proportion of freelancers in the sector peaked at 30.5 percent between January and August of last year, according to Statistics Korea.
 
A stepping stone to the entertainment industry
 
For many in 2025, weathercasting isn’t just about the weather — it’s also become a stepping stone to a career in entertainment.
 
An upside of freelance status is that weathercasters are free to appear on other programs and build an independent brand for themselves. Many weathercasters have become celebrities in the past few decades, not only through their broadcasts, but also through their presence on other media platforms, with some even having their own fan clubs. 
 
For instance, KBS weathercaster Kang A-rang has been delivering forecasts for nearly a decade while also working as a news anchor for the National Assembly Television. With her strong fan base, she has been creating a calendar featuring her photos since 2019, donating all proceeds to the nonprofit Community Chest of Korea. 
 

KBS weathercaster Kang A-rang delivers the weather forecast on Feb. 20, 2025. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
Such flexibility makes the transition to entertainment a natural next step. 


Kim Hye-eun, who worked as a weathercaster at MBC until 2004, later transitioned to acting, appearing in numerous commercials and TV series. More recently, Kim Min-ah, a former weathercaster at JTBC, gained popularity for her humor and charisma on the YouTube channel Workman, furthering her career as a television personality.
 
For others, working as a weathercaster can be a stepping stone to becoming a news anchor or show host at major broadcast firms. Lee Jin-hee, a former weathercaster at TV Chosun, transitioned to a permanent announcer at the same station. Similarly, MBC announcer Ahn Ju-hee worked as a weathercaster at MBN before securing a permanent position at MBC in 2018.
 
The rise of figures like Kang and Ahn has created something of a snowball effect: As more female weathercasters appear across television and social media, more young women end up seeking the job, hoping to follow in the footsteps of those they idolize.
 
“People who want to become announcers or weathercasters, like I once did, are often drawn to the glamorous side of the job,” said 25-year-old Lee Seon-ah, a former finance newscaster. She admitted that part of her motivation stemmed from admiring the lives of celebrities and television personalities.
 
“Becoming an actual celebrity is extremely difficult, so I thought becoming an announcer or a weathercaster — someone who looks attractive but also seems smart — would be an easier path.”
 

Weathercaster-turned-actor Kim Hye-eun attends the 2025 Spring/Summer Seoul Fashion Week at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Jung District, central Seoul, on Sep. 3, 2024. [NEWS1]

 
Unstable work, lack of protections


But while the freelance system offers benefits and opportunities for some, its instability has left others struggling.
 
“The uncertainty of the job is why I gave up pursuing a freelance career in broadcasting,” said 25-year-old Lee.
 
“Even if I was lucky enough to land a broadcasting role, it didn’t mean my job was secure in the long run,” she added, explaining that if a broadcaster no longer wanted her, she would simply lose her job.
 
Under the Labor Standards Act, freelancers are not classified as “employees” and are therefore are not entitled to protection under laws such as the Minimum Wage Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act. They are also exempt from the Labor Standards Act’s ban on workplace harassment, 52-hour workweek cap and guarantee of four major social insurance policies. 
 
7.4 percent of 1,000 respondents to a survey pollster Global Research conducted from Dec. 2 to Dec. 11 of last year said they had signed freelance contracts — nearly two-thirds of which were illegal. Around 65 percent of those freelancers, however, reported receiving orders and instructions from companies as if they were regular employees on the survey released on Feb. 2 by Gapjil 119, a civic group dedicated to combating workplace abuse. Fifty-seven percent said the terms of their employment did not guarantee them minimum wage or Korea's four major social insurance policies.
 

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“A weathercaster is no different from a delivery rider — they are paid per assignment, and no one takes responsibility if they get into an accident,” a bereaved family member of the late weathercaster Oh told press watchdog Media Today.
 
The temporary nature of freelance work also disincentives cable networks from investing in their training and development, often leaving such employees — who are still required to conduct research and write their own scripts, a 30-year-old who once aspired to become a weathercaster told the JoongAng Daily — to find it for themselves. While full-time reporters commonly receive training in-house, aspiring weathercasters often attend private cram schools for six months to a year in order to obtain the required meteorology and speech skills. 
 
The 30-year-old, a media studies major who ended up becoming a radio traffic reporter, recalled learning “how to clearly deliver the forecast, analyze weather data and create graphics” during her stint at such a school.


Maeng stressed that broadcasters should provide such education to freelance weathercasters. Doing so would allow them to ensure quality standards and consistency across their training in a way that a scattered network of cram schools can't guarantee — and better scripts and data analysis after all, benefit their business as much as they do their employees. 
 
But the extra office time necessary for such training is incompatible with Korea's current labor structure, in which freelance weathercasters are only compensated per-project and not for a full workweek, Maeng said. "Such a system is only possible for journalists, because they are hired full-time."
 

Former MBC weathercaster Oh Yoanna appears in an episode of the tvN talk show “You Quiz on the Block” in September 2022. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
The deaths of Oh and others are prompting calls to improve working conditions for Korea's freelancers.
 
“The late broadcaster’s case fully exposes the structural discrimination against nonregular workers in Korea’s broadcasting industry, the normalization of a dehumanizing culture of endless competition and the arrogance and irresponsibility of employers,” the National Union of Media Workers wrote in a statement on Feb. 3.
 
The union criticized the industry’s practice of hiring nonregular workers “to cut costs” and “indiscriminately expanding their use even for essential tasks,” saying it has turned broadcasting into a hub of “exploitation, discrimination and mistreatment.”
 
Young, multitalented professionals who overcome fierce competition to get on the air expect to have bright futures. However, the realities of freelance employment often make it difficult for them to enjoy their work — let alone feel secure in their jobs.
 
“I remember a message from a viewer I received while doing the morning news,” the late MBC weathercaster Oh said in an interview on tvN’s You Quiz on the Block in 2022.
 
“It was: Many people will now have a more convenient day thanks to you.”

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]