KCC Approves Plan to Appoint Board Members at Public Broadcasters

The nation’s broadcasting watchdog has approved a plan to appoint board members at three public broadcasters, KBS, MBC and EBS.

The unanimous decision was reached on Friday during a plenary session attended by two current standing members of the Korea Communications Commission(KCC), Chairman Kim Hong-il and Vice Chair Lee Sang-in.

Earlier, MBC had filed a petition for Lee’s recusal, which was dismissed by the KCC citing abuse of the right to seek the recusal.

Under the approved plan, public recruitment to replace nine board members and one auditor at the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, MBC’s largest shareholder, is expected to run from Friday through 6 p.m. July 11.

A similar process will run during the same period to replace eleven KBS board members, while recruitment of nine board members at EBS will take place from July 12 to 6 p.m. July 25. No decision has yet been made on how the KCC will short-list the candidates.

Friday’s approval comes after the Legislation and Judiciary Committee in the opposition-strong National Assembly passed a contentious bill that aims to increase the KCC’s decision-making quorum to four out of five people, given the current vacancy of three standing commissioner posts.