Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said, “The restoration of Seoul has largely faded due to opposition from the parliament during the budget deliberation process. Mayor Oh criticized ‘Kim Eo-jun’s News Factory’ on his Facebook on the 17th and criticized, “Certain programs have continued to cause controversy over fairness, and in the end, they are even being sarcastic regarding whether it is a private broadcast.” I do not listen to the criticism of the citizens even with my ears.”
Mayor Oh Se-hoon said, “TBS was newly launched as an independent corporation two years ago. True independence requires both duties and responsibilities, and financial independence accounts for a significant portion of them. However, it did not mention the fact that the Korea Communications Commission is banning commercial advertisements on TBS amid collective opposition from other terrestrial broadcasters.
Mayor Oh emphasized the legitimacy of the ‘reduction’, saying, “In 2021, Seoul’s financial dependence on TBS reached 72.8%, significantly exceeding the city’s overall financial dependence on the average of 42%.” However, it did not disclose the fact that TBS raised the financial independence level from 18% before the conversion to 27%. He continued, “I reduced the contribution for the purpose of commercial advertisements or efforts to secure additional financial resources, but the city council increased it once more. The efforts of me and the city officials in trying to create a proper budget were inevitably damaged to a large extent in front of the voting rights of the city council, where the Democratic Party has an absolute majority,” he said.
Earlier, the Seoul City Council finalized the TBS contribution for 2022 to 32 billion won, a decrease of 5.5 billion won from the previous year. This was lower than the 12.3 billion won reduction proposed by Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, but it did not reach the 37.9 billion won TBS contribution planned by the city of Seoul in November 2020.
Mayor Oh’s assertion appeared on the same day as a rebuttal to the argument of Kim In-ho, chairman of the Seoul City Council. Chairman Kim In-ho on Facebook on the 17th said, “TBS is an institution that costs 37 billion won a year only for fixed costs such as staff labor costs, office maintenance costs, and transmission and broadcasting equipment maintenance. The city of Seoul knew all of this, but following organizing the budget to a level that it might not even cover the annual fixed expenses, it applied a deterrent logic to talk regarding ‘independence of broadcasting’.” He then criticized Mayor Oh, saying, “I didn’t dare say ‘broadcast bias’ because I was afraid of the broadcasting law, but anyone who sees it is holding a money chain and waving it and gagging on TBS.”
Chairman Kim In-ho was concerned regarding the 32 billion won donation as well, saying, “The city of Seoul, which has the authority to grant the budget, has room to handle it as it pleases.” Meanwhile, Kang-taek Lee, CEO of TBS, said in his New Year’s address, “In 2022, TBS is at a crossroads between whether it will become an independent and clear media company or it will be eliminated as an affiliated institution of the government.” We need to lead change in the world and respond to crises,” he said.
