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| [Comment]Woori Party, Withdraw the Targeting Legislation |
| Name |
admin |
Date |
2004-12-03 |
Hit |
45086 |
Woori Party, Withdraw the Targeting Legislation
Woori Party decided to lay before the deliberation process for the revised bill on periodicals in the National Assembly’s Culture and Tourism Committee the plan to limit the targets for the regulation of the market shares to all-round daily newspapers issued by the central newspaper companies and use the number of the newspapers subscribed with fee as the standard for the calculation of their market shares.
The original bill on newspapers submitted by the government party stipulated that in case one out of the daily newspapers (central all-round papers, economic papers, local newspapers, and English-written newspapers) except for free newspapers represents over 30% of the market share or the sum of three newspapers’ market shares does over 60%, they shall be assumed to be market-ruling companies according to the Fair Trade Law.
By the way, last October, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism interpreted authoritatively through the replying material of the inspection of government offices conducted by the National Assembly that according to the current law, daily newspapers include all the all-round papers, sports papers, economic papers and local papers, and when the dispute over how to calculate the market shares of newspapers was brought about, it interpreted that Chosun, Joongang, and Donga daily newspapers were not market-ruling enterprises, saying that they all represent 44.17% (with the standard of the sales) of the total market share.
By now, the government party has just announced the calculation of market shares targeting the all-round daily newspapers, not suggesting any concrete standard to do so. However, when the definition and market share analysis of daily newspapers were announced by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism as mentioned above, the assemblymen belonging to the Culture and Tourism Committee of Woori Party took action to repair the bill in order to achieve the goal to define the top three newspapers as market-ruling companies. It is that they picked up a fish spear in a flurry, thinking that the fish targeted originally cannot be caught with a loosely stitched net.
The government party first decided to use the number of charged copies as the standard to calculate the market share, which is an item that cannot be applied in reality because only Chosun, Donga, and Joongang newspapers are under ABC(Audit Bureau of Circulations) system that enforced them to be audited publicly and publicize the number of sold copies. Given the situation, the standard for the Government to calculate the number of charged copies and market share of a newspaper company would become inevitably vague, and it is also possible to determine market-ruling companies merely with the number of charged copies seized arbitrarily at last.
Currently, Korea has its narrow newspaper market, and the market is not being activated as done in the past. Nevertheless, as Woori Party insists limiting the targets for the calculation of market shares to the central daily newspapers, bringing their influence and public responsibility as the basis of its maintenance, the logic itself seems very weak.
The purpose of Woori Party has been clearly revealed. It was to kill the three major newspapers that are critical against the Government and the government party while the original purpose set up to the public was to normalize and activate the newspaper market. They cannot deny the fact any more.
The first party, Woori Party first made the provision of the bill they laid, which is the key one moreover, abstract, and is showing the attitude of modifying and changing its original goal after it escaped from the intended track. It is so deplorable that one of the bills that the government party put up as the major tasks to propel, the bill related to the Press is mixed with political intention. CUBS hopes Woori Party to execute the review all over the bills related to the Press including the bill on newspapers which was put out hastily and newly compose a bill on the development of the Press all the people can understand as soon as possible.
Dec 1, 2004
Citizens United for Better Society
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