About Arirang Korea TV

Arirang Korea TV

Overview

Arirang Korea TV is a Korean-language television programme produced in Toronto for Korean-speaking Canadians, broadcast on Rogers' OMNI Television stations. It is a magazine-style programme: in its own published description, Arirang Korea offers the local community thirty first-run minutes each week of news, information, entertainment and events. Electronic programme guides describe the broadcast edition, listed as "Arirang Korea," in matching terms — a news programme for Korean-speaking Canadians — and it remains on OMNI schedules in October 2026.

An important clarification, because the name invites confusion: Arirang Korea TV is a Canadian community production made in Toronto, and it is not the South Korean international broadcaster Arirang TV. The Seoul-based Arirang TV, run by the Korea International Broadcasting Foundation and on air since 1997, is a global English-led channel distributed from Korea. The Toronto programme is a separate, locally produced service for Canada's Korean community; the two share only a name drawn from "Arirang," the beloved Korean folk song often described as Korea's unofficial anthem. University of Toronto sources make the distinction plain, describing Arirang Korea TV as a Korean diasporic media outlet based in Toronto that airs through OMNI TV.

History

Arirang Korea TV is documented in Toronto's Korean community life from at least the early 2010s. In 2012 the programme ran the Arirang Korea Smartphone Film Festival, inviting Canadians to submit short smartphone films with a Korean element; the selected works screened on 11 May 2012 at Innis Town Hall in Toronto, with the winning entries aired afterwards on OMNI TV through the programme. That same year, the programme's producer Mingu Kim represented it on an industry panel at the University of Toronto on diversity in Canadian journalism, and the University of Toronto's Korean Canadian Heritage Archives project catalogued "Arirang Korea TV on OMNI TV (Toronto, Ontario)" among the community's media.

In 2013, for the fiftieth anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Canada, Arirang Korea TV produced a documentary special on the history of Korean immigration to Canada, a copy of which is held in the University of Toronto's collections — evidence of the programme's role as a chronicler of the community, not merely a carrier of entertainment. That archival record is unusually deep for a community programme: the University of Toronto's Korean Canadian Heritage Archives, a project of the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, treats Arirang Korea TV as one of the community's media of record alongside Toronto's Korean newspapers such as the Korea Times Daily and JoongAng Canada. Its community role has persisted: the Toronto Smartphone Film Festival's 2024 call for submissions still named Arirang Korea TV as its media sponsor, with selected films to air through the programme on OMNI 2. No exact founding date for the programme could be verified from the sources consulted, and none is asserted here.

Programming and Content

Each week Arirang Korea produces a thirty-minute first-run magazine edition for Korean-speaking viewers. The programme's own description sets out the mix: local news, information, entertainment and community events. In practice, that means coverage of Toronto's Korean community — its organisations, churches, businesses and cultural life — presented in Korean, alongside material connecting viewers to Korea itself. Programme guides similarly characterise it as a news programme for Korean-speaking Canadians.

The programme has also functioned as a platform for Korean-Canadian creative work: its smartphone film festival showcased Canadian-made short films on Korean themes — the 2012 edition offered a $1,500 top cash prize and festival packages, and screened at Innis Town Hall — and its documentary work has addressed the community's own history in Canada, including the 2013 immigration-history special. Documentary filmmaker Eui Yong Zong, whose short "My Grandpa" won the Allan King Memorial Prize, is among the media professionals who have worked for Arirang Korea TV at OMNI 2. It continues to attract working journalists: a current University of Toronto doctoral researcher in diasporic media, Alice Nahyeon Kim, is described by the Engaged Journalism project as working as a diasporic media reporter for Arirang Korea TV — a sign that the programme continues to produce original reporting, not merely repeat archive material.

Audience and Reach

Arirang Korea TV serves Canada's Korean community. Statistics Canada's 2021 Census counted 218,140 people in the Korean population group nationally, and Toronto is one of its principal centres: the Toronto census metropolitan area counted 73,385 Korean residents in the 2016 Census, concentrated in areas such as the Yonge Street corridor in North York and the downtown Koreatown, and supported by a dense Korean media market of newspapers, radio and television in which Arirang Korea is the established community television programme.

Broadcast carriage defines the programme's reach. Its broadcast home, OMNI 2, is Toronto's second multicultural station, launched by Rogers in 2002 as CJMT to carry programming for Asian and African communities while OMNI 1 concentrated on European and Latin American audiences — the structural reason a Korean-language programme sits on OMNI 2's schedule. Its own published schedule places it on OMNI 2 in Toronto on Saturdays, with repeat airings on Mondays and Wednesdays, on OMNI BC on Sundays and on OMNI Alberta on Saturdays, and programme guides confirm "Arirang Korea" in OMNI 2 and OMNI Pacific schedules in October 2026. The programme publishes no audience figures, and none are claimed in this profile; its documented reach rests on that multi-region OMNI carriage and its long-standing place in the community's media listings.

Digital Presence

Arirang Korea TV's website is arirangkorea.ca, and the programme maintains social media accounts under the name arirangkoreatv on Facebook, X (Twitter) and Instagram, with programme segments and interviews also circulating on YouTube. A note on sources: the programme's own site could not be retrieved by the research tools used for this profile, so this account rests on the programme's own published schedule and description as reproduced in its video listings, on University of Toronto archival and project sources, on the Toronto Smartphone Film Festival's records, and on current OMNI programme guides, which together verify the programme's identity, format and present-day broadcasts.

Ownership and Organisation

Arirang Korea TV is an independently produced community programme carried by Rogers' OMNI Television, which provides its broadcast slots in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. The programme's production is Toronto-based; its producer in 2012 was Mingu Kim, documented in that role in University of Toronto event records. No parent company, owner or current full production team for the programme could be verified from the public sources consulted, and no CRTC licence is held in the programme's own name, consistent with its status as a programme supplied to a licensed multicultural broadcaster rather than a standalone channel. No ownership claims beyond that documented position are made here.

Contact and Availability

Arirang Korea TV can be watched on OMNI 2 in the Toronto area on Saturday mornings, with repeat airings early in the week, and on OMNI BC and OMNI Alberta in the weekend slots published by the programme; current OMNI programme guides carry the up-to-date listings under "Arirang Korea." In keeping with this directory's policy, the structured business email field for this listing is left empty; viewers seeking the programme's current contact details should consult arirangkorea.ca or the programme's social media accounts, which remain the authoritative sources for its schedule and viewing options.