Prosecution Indicts Former KCC Director Over Alleged Interference in TV Chosun Reauthorization

A former director of the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) who is accused of improperly intervening in the TV Chosun re-approval review process has been indicted while in custody.

The Criminal Division 5 of the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Park Kyung-seop) indicted Yang Mo, former Director of the KCC Broadcasting Policy Bureau, on the charge of leaking official secrets on the 20th.

Yang is accused of informing the chairman of the review committee of TV Chosun's evaluation score tally during the March 2020 review process for TV Chosun's general programming channel re-approval. It was investigated that after TV Chosun's evaluation score was tallied as meeting the re-approval requirements, he committed the crime to alter the scores and change the evaluation results.

In April 2020, TV Chosun received a score of 653.39, exceeding the benchmark score of 650, in the general programming channel re-approval review by the KCC. However, in the public responsibility category, it received 104.15 points, which was below the benchmark of 105 points, resulting in a conditional re-approval decision.