Title | KCC draws up amendments to Broadcasting Act | ||
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Date | 2019-06-19 | Read | 60390 |
On June 12, the Korea Communications Commission announced an amendment to the Enforcement Decree on the Broadcasting Act in order to improve the system of noncommercial public service announcements (PSAs). First, this amendment clearly defines the concept of noncommercial public service announcements. Noncommercial public service announcement programming was made legally mandatory for broadcasting business operators in order to increase their public interest responsibility. As such, the related costs fall on the broadcasting business operator. However, a lack of clarity in the current rules created controversy on what defined a noncommercial public service announcement. For example, broadcasting business operators could broadcast public campaigns produced after receiving sponsorships, or government commercials with public messages produced by the government or public organizations under the banner of noncommercial public service announcements. In response, the KCC plans to clarify the legal definition of noncommercial public service announcements as the following: 1. commercials produced by broadcasting business operators by their own capital for a public interest objective or 2. commercials produced by the government or public agencies transmitted “at no cost” by broadcasting business operators. Second, the KCC plans to exempt broadcasting business operators whose broadcasting business revenue falls below a certain amount from the mandatory PSA programming. This decision was made to reduce the burden for smaller broadcasting business operators with less revenue or influence, due to criticisms that a 30 million KRW administrative fine was too harsh for such businesses. Third, the KCC drew up the legal basis for determining a weighted system for programming time slots in order to expand noncommercial public service announcement programming. Giving greater weight to PSA programming dring higher viewership time slots would encourage programming of noncommercial PSAs in such high viewership time slots. Chairman Lee commented, “noncommercial public service announcements are founded on the principles of humanism, public interest, and citizenship, and play a significant role in improving social values. This amendment will help promote noncommercial PSAs and improve the public responsibility of broadcasting.” Moving forward, the KCC plans to publicize related lawmaking activities, collect opinions from stakeholders, and undergo review by the Legislative Office. |
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