It is enacted in the current Broadcast Law that the types of broadcasting advertising are divided into program advertising, commercial breaks, brief advertising, subtitle advertising, and time signal advertising. Since 2010, virtual advertising has been allowed only in sports programs, and indirect advertisements have been allowed only in entertainment and cultural programs. In the case of brief advertising, it had been allowed 4 pieces at a time, but effective October 1, 2010, the limitation of the number of advertisements was abolished, so diverse methods of advertising have been made possible. The detailed scope, frequency, and time applicable to those advertisements are differently applied depending on media in accordance with the enforcement ordinance of the same law. The terrestrial broadcasting companies are allowed to broadcast advertisements up to 10% of a program but commercial breaks are prohibited. Cable TV, satellite cable network, terrestrial DMB, and satellite DMB network are allowed to do various forms of broadcast advertisements for up to 10 minutes per hour. Although they cannot exceed 12 minutes, these media can do commercial breaks, unlike terrestrial broadcasting companies.
Meanwhile, it is enacted in the Broadcast Law, Article 74 that broadcasting companies can do sponsorship notices within the scope stipulated by the Presidential degree, and Article 60 of the enforcement ordinance of the same Law lists the cases, in which sponsorship notices are allowed, such as “sponsoring the public campaigns conducted by broadcasting companies,” “sponsoring the public events such as cultural art and sports events managed by broadcasting companies,” “sponsoring the broadcasting programs produced by those who produce broadcasting programs who have no special relationship with the applicable broadcasting company.” According to this regulation, the terrestrial broadcasting companies’ sponsorship notices are not allowed in the case of sponsoring the production of programs, but only in the case of large-scale special programs with the public utility nature, they are exceptionally allowed. Currently, the only kind of program that belongs to the category of the “large-scale special programs with the public utility nature” is a documentary program.
Nevertheless, the terrestrial broadcasting companies classify traffic information, securities information, economic trends, weather information, one minute news, etc. into public campaigns and are actually doing sponsorship notices by directly receiving sponsorships from enterprises Civil groups criticize these practices as an expediency violating the enforcement ordinance of the Broadcast Law, and in the 2009 parliamentary inspection of the administration, it was recommended that the practices of the terrestrial broadcasting companies’ receiving the programs like stock quotations and receiving sponsorship of production cost separately be improved.
Despite the fact that the broadcast advertisements and sponsorship notices are very similar in the aspect of effectiveness, the current laws are not adequately established with regard to sponsorship notices, compared with the broadcast advertisements. And the current laws do not stipulate any action regulation or contents regulation with regard to the action called ‘sponsorship,’ but stipulate only the formal regulation called ‘sponsorship notice’, so they contain the problems that the three-dimensional regulation system associated with the sponsorship, which is contents, and the sponsorship notice, which is formality, are hard to work. In other words, since there are no laws regulating the action of sponsorship, it is impossible to regulate expedient or illegal sponsorships. Accordingly, this article examined diverse pending issues and problems related to sponsorship notices, and presented rational ways to regulate and remedy inadequate aspects of the current broadcast laws.