Advertisers demand retraction of rate rise

An emergency board meeting of the Korea Advertisers Association held Friday resolved that the Korea Broadcasting Advertising Corporation should call off its earlier decision to raise broadcast advertisement charges up to 9.8 percent (average 5 percent) this year.

Its statement found fault with the corporation`s successive rate increases following a sharp rise of up to 30 percent (average 9.9 percent) last year on the pretext of generating funds to support the introduction of digital broadcasting. The association pointed out that it is inappropriate to depend only on raising advertisement charges for financing digital broadcasting in order to implement a program pursued by the government.

The board refuted the claim of the corporation that the average rise was 3.8 percent, which the association members said had been miscalculated, and promised to take countermeasures against tie-in sales and other unfair practices involving broadcast advertisements.

Lee Seung-Heon ddr@donga.com