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Governance Reform and Political Independence in Public Broadcasting - A Comparative Analysis of KBS and MBC and an Evaluation of the Broadcasting Three Acts -

  • Legal Theory & Practice Review
  • Abbr : LTPR
  • 2026, 14(2), pp.449~486
  • Publisher : The Korea Society for Legal Theory and Practice Inc.
  • Research Area : Social Science > Law
  • Received : May 8, 2026
  • Accepted : May 23, 2026
  • Published : May 31, 2026

강태우 1

1단국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study examines the relationship between governance reform and political independence in Korean public broadcasting, focusing on KBS and MBC from a comparative institutional perspective, and evaluates the institutional effectiveness and limitations of the 2025 amendment to the so-called Broadcasting Three Acts. To this end, the study conceptualizes political independence in public broadcasting along three dimensions: governance independence, financial independence, and editorial autonomy. Based on this framework, it integrates political patronage theory, Humphreys’ typology of public broadcasting governance, and the concept of political parallelism into a unified analytical model. The analysis finds that the structural pathology of Korean public broadcasting lies in the informal partisan allocation system represented by the “7:4 practice” in the KBS board and the “6:3 practice” in the Foundation for Broadcast Culture board, both of which operated without explicit legal basis. These informal arrangements functioned as institutional channels through which political patronage was repeatedly reproduced. As a result, changes in government were closely followed by changes in broadcasting leadership, repeated infringements on editorial autonomy, and persistent instability in financial structures. In particular, the separation of license fee collection in KBS and the advertising-dependent structure of MBC demonstrate that political independence in public broadcasting cannot be reduced to governance arrangements alone, but must also be understood in relation to financial structures. The 2025 Broadcasting Three Acts introduced several notable reforms, including diversification of board nomination bodies, the establishment of a public candidate recommendation committee and supermajority voting for the selection of presidents, codification of grounds for dismissal, and legal institutionalization of a consent system for appointing news executives. These reforms represent meaningful progress in terms of governance independence and editorial autonomy. However, significant limitations remain, including the continued presence of politically mediated nominations, uncertainty surrounding changes in informal norms, instability in the operation of the Korea Communications Commission, and the unresolved issue of financial independence. Comparative analysis with the BBC, Germany’s ARD and ZDF, and Japan’s NHK suggests that the independence of public broadcasting cannot be secured by institutional design alone. Rather, it requires the combined support of political culture, internal governance norms, and stable financing structures. In conclusion, the 2025 reform constitutes an important turning point in the pursuit of political independence for Korean public broadcasting, but it should be understood as a limited reform that fulfills some necessary conditions without reaching the level of sufficient conditions. Future reform efforts should therefore focus on stabilizing financial independence, strengthening the substantive representativeness of nomination structures, and institutionalizing internal governance norms.

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