The Broadcasting, Media and Communications Committee recommended Chae Young-gil, a professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, for a seat on the TBS board. He was nominated as one of the committee’s two ex officio directors among the broadcaster’s 11 board members. On April 29, the committee approved a conditional three-year renewal of TBS’s license and voted to permit commercial advertising.
On April 30, Chae told Media Today that a number of committee decisions remain to be resolved before TBS can be fully normalized. He said the immediate priority is giving TBS employees the material foundation they need to make a fresh start.
Chae said he will actively pursue concrete steps to secure that foundation and work with internal staff to implement them quickly. “For now, I believe short-term survival measures must take precedence over medium- and long-term goals,” he said.
Chae has been a persistent voice on TBS’s normalization. At panels and public forums, he has proposed creating a “local public broadcaster” category within the public sector so that municipal governments would share part of the funding burden. He also appeared in the recent documentary The Studio That Won’t Go Dark, which profiles the people defending TBS.
