The presidential candidate TV debate hosted by the National Election Broadcasting and Debate Committee will be held today (21st) at 8 pm. This is the first of three TV debates set by the Public Official Election Act. The broadcast of this discussion, which is being held at the MBC studio, is KBS, MBC, and the three terrestrial broadcasters. It is known that six non-terrestrial broadcasters, including general programming channels and news-specialized channels, will pay a ‘price’ of 5 million won (3 episodes total 15 million won) to broadcast and broadcast the main broadcast. However, online broadcasting such as YouTube cannot be performed. There is a claim that it is “an irrational notification from a terrestrial broadcaster”.
An official from a non-terrestrial broadcaster said, “The broadcast of the presidential debate on TV is supervised by the state, and the purpose is to allow many people to directly hear and judge the views of major candidates. We made the broadcast possible and notified non-terrestrial broadcasters to ban Internet broadcasts,” he said.
Such a decision is the result of an ‘agreement’ with the three terrestrial broadcasters, not the law. An official of the terrestrial broadcaster said, “YouTube is a different matter from the main broadcast. Even if a broadcaster operates YouTube, broadcaster YouTube should be viewed as a separate medium. “YouTube is not a broadcast,” he said. On the other hand, a non-terrestrial official said, “The concept of relay must be broadly interpreted. Terrestrial broadcasters are watching (main broadcast and Internet broadcast) separately for their own benefit.” With this decision, it has become difficult for non-terrestrial broadcasters to organize OTT programs such as Naver TV and TV as well as YouTube.
Voters are getting used to watching TV debates on digital platforms such as YouTube. Therefore, as the number of viewers increases, the dissatisfaction of broadcasters who cannot do ‘digital relay’ is bound to increase. In the presidential debate on the 11th, which was previously organized by 6 general and news channels, the highest number of concurrent users on YouTube was JTBC 121,530 people, YTN 72,233 people, Channel A 53,826 people, TV Chosun 47,111 people, and YouTube. The cumulative number of views is over 2 million when the four companies combine 990,000 JTBC, 550,000 YTN, 260,000 Channel A, and 240,000 TV Chosun.
In the future, it may lead to an argument that the National Election Commission should revise the law that specifies terrestrial broadcasting. From the standpoint of terrestrial broadcasters, it can be thought of as a kind of ‘sales of broadcasting rights’, but from the point of view of non-terrestrial broadcasters, it is the decisive difference that they think of it as a “full data that should of course be received.” The source of the conflict is the ‘changed status’ of the three terrestrial broadcasters and the six non-terrestrial broadcasters. Terrestrial broadcasters no longer overwhelm non-terrestrial broadcasters in accessibility. Last month, the National Assembly plenary session passed a bill to amend the Public Official Election Act, which allows the transmission of full-length campaign advertisements, relaying candidates’ speeches, and holding interviews and debates for candidates.
