What Changed in Section K in ISIC Rev. 5?

The creation of Section K is the main change described here in ISIC Rev. 5, UN Statistics Division. In Rev. 4, telecommunications, computer programming and information services sat alongside publishing and broadcasting in a single Section J. In Rev. 5, endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission in March 2023, that section was split: publishing, broadcasting and content production and distribution stayed in the new Section J, while telecommunications, computer programming, consultancy, computing infrastructure and other information services moved to Section K.

What did the old combined Section J contain before the split?

Before Rev. 5, a single Section J held a crowded household. Telecommunications, computer programming and information services sat alongside publishing and broadcasting, so a national total for Section J mixed network operators, software firms, book publishers and television broadcasters. That made sense when information industries were smaller and their boundaries felt less urgent. As networks and software grew into infrastructure for every other industry, and as content production grew into its own creative economy, the shared section began to hide more than it revealed. A rise in the old Section J total could mean more broadband, more software, more books, more television, or all four at once, and no reader of the total could tell which. The split in Rev. 5, endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission in March 2023, was a response to that crowding, not a change in what any single business does day to day.

How would a national office move a series without inventing growth?

Imagine a national office converting a published time series, using the example already given for this topic and filling in its working steps. First, the office lists every unit previously counted in the old Section J and sorts them by task: telecom and computing units on one side, publishing and broadcasting units on the other. Next, it applies UNSD correspondence guidance and the Rev. 5 publication from the UN Statistics Division to move the telecom and computing units into Section K, leaving publishing and broadcasting units in the new Section J. Then it recalculates past years on the new basis, so the old and new series can be compared, and it publishes an explanation of the break wherever the series appears. Without that explanation, users would mistake a classification change for economic growth, celebrating a boom in Section K that was really a move of existing units, or lamenting a collapse in Section J that was really a departure of units that still exist elsewhere.

What stayed in Section J and what moved to Section K?

The new Section J kept publishing, broadcasting and content production and distribution: books, films, music, programmes and the services that create and issue them. Section K received telecommunications, computer programming, consultancy, computing infrastructure and other information services. Within Section K, the descriptions for hosting, infrastructure and information services were also updated, reflecting how cloud services and search portals had developed since Rev. 4. Equipment manufacturing did not move into either content section, and trade in software products stayed in trade, because making a device and selling a product are different tasks from operating a network or writing code. The overall frame of ISIC Rev. 5, UN Statistics Division, contains 22 sections from A to V, with 87 divisions, 258 groups and 463 classes in total, and Section K is one new room inside that frame, built by dividing an old room rather than by adding a new building.

Why did networks and software outgrow a shared home with content?

The deeper reason is that networks and software became inputs to everything else, while content remained an output in its own right. A factory, a hospital and a farm all buy connectivity and software, and their productivity depends on those inputs, whether or not they produce any content at all. Measuring networks and software together with publishing hid the infrastructure story inside a creative story, and measuring content together with networks hid the creative story inside an infrastructure story. Rev. 5 gives each story its own section and a clearer base for digital economy statistics, so analysts can ask separately how much an economy invests in connectivity, how much software it creates, and how much content it produces. That separation also helps countries compare themselves more honestly, because a country strong in software but weak in publishing no longer looks identical to a country with the opposite pattern.

This guide describes a revision of a statistical system, not a judgement on any business. It does not determine any reader’s code, principal activity or registration, and the national statistical institute or business register that holds the record remains the authority to confirm a code under the new structure.