The prosecution has requested arrest warrants for two officials, a director and a manager at the Korea Communications Commission, who are suspected of deliberately lowering scores during the re-approval review of the comprehensive programming channel Chosun Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (TV Chosun).
According to the court and prosecution on the 7th, the Criminal Division 5 of the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Park Kyung-seop) filed arrest warrants for the two on charges of obstruction of business for coercing the review committee members to manipulate scores during the 2020 re-approval process of TV Chosun's comprehensive programming channel.
The re-approval criterion for comprehensive programming channels is a minimum of 650 points out of 1000. Even if the score exceeds 650, if the score in the key review areas does not exceed 50% of the total points allocated, conditional re-approval or rejection is applied.
In TV Chosun's case, the total score was 653.39, surpassing the threshold. However, it received conditional re-approval due to failing the key review item of "public responsibility and feasibility of fairness in broadcasting, and regional, social, and cultural necessity."
Last September, the prosecution received audit materials from the Board of Audit and Inspection containing evidence that some KCC review committee members intentionally gave low scores to TV Chosun and is currently conducting an investigation.
So far, the KCC has been raided three times, and earlier this month, related KCC officials including comprehensive programming channel re-approval review committee members were summoned for questioning.
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