Anchor: A Korean-American actor and actress who have long appeared in a hit U.S. TV series have decided to step down over paycheck inequalities between them and their white co-stars. The issue has stirred up debate on the treatment of Asian stars in Hollywood. 
Our Kim Soyon has this report.
 
Report: Korean-American Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park played two of the four police officers fighting criminal gangs on the CBS network's hit series "Hawaii Five-0."
 
[Sound bite: Daniel Dae Kim - Korean-American Actor] 
"I think our show is notable. We probably hire more Asian Americans than any other show in the history of television." 
 
However, Kim and Park are leaving the long-running series and will not appear from the next season which airs September. 
 
Foreign media including CNN have reported that the duo left because their request to be paid the same as their white co-stars was rejected. The two are believed to have been offered ten to 15 percent less than co-stars Scott Caan and Alex O’Loughlin.
 
CBS said that it did not want to lose the pair and tried very hard to keep them with offers of significant salary increases but they could not reach an agreement.
 
In a Facebook post to his fans, Kim said that as an Asian American actor, he knows first-hand how difficult it is to find opportunities at all, let alone play a well-developed, three dimensional character like the one he plays on Hawaii Five-0. 
 
He added that "the path to equality is rarely easy."
 
Tim Dang who served as artistic director at the Asian American theatre company, East West Players(EWP) has criticized the age old Hollywood practice of discriminating roles, casting and wages over race. 
 
[Soundbite: Tim Dang - Former Producing Artistic Director, East West Players]
 "One out of six doctors in the United States is Asian. Why don't you see that in TV?"
 
The Washington Post said that Kim’s and Park’s departures arguably call into question how much the network valued the Asian actors and these examples are just the tip of the iceberg.
 
The Post cited a survey from last October of how much the highest-paid actors on TV earn. It showed only one of the top 15 comedy actors was not white — Dwayne Johnson.
Kim Soyon, KBS World Radio News.