Broadcasting Act of 'Integrated Collection of KBS Receipts' Passes Over Defense Led By Opposition

The National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee led by the opposition Democratic Party of Korea to pass the amendment to the Broadcasting Act, which stipulates that the license fee of the Korea Broadcasting Corporation and KBS should be collected in an integrated manner.

The power of the people opposed the revision, saying that more and more families do not have TVs and that a majority of the people are in favor of separate collection, but the opposition party, which has a numerical advantage, voted to revise the bill.

Earlier in July last year, the Korea Communications Commission revised the Enforcement Decree of the Broadcasting Act to require Korea Electric Power Corp. to collect TV license fees separately from electricity charges, and separate collections took effect this year.

However, the Democratic Party has been pushing for legislation to collect fees integrated, saying that public broadcasting should be prevented from being financially subordinated to the state or various interest groups and that inconvenience caused by separate bills for license fees should be resolved.