Ulsan City has conducted a comprehensive analysis of 1,963 government advertising expenditures from January 2024 to May 2026, totaling 17.4 billion won. This amounts to an average monthly expenditure of around 600 million won of taxpayer money for promoting city policies through various media outlets.
Government advertising is an administrative process where public institutions select media to convey public interest information to citizens. Therefore, the selection of media and budget allocation require transparency, objectivity, and economic justification.
However, an analysis of Ulsan City's advertising expenditures revealed a lack of publicly available quantitative evaluation criteria in the budget allocation process among media outlets, with a significant concentration of spending on specific broadcasters and some central media outlets.
In terms of media type, broadcasting accounted for the largest share, with 7.8 billion won (44.8%). This was followed by outdoor advertising at 4.4 billion won (25.3%), internet advertising at 2.7 billion won (15.5%), print advertising at 2.4 billion won (13.8%), and overseas advertising at 90 million won (0.5%).
The most significant disparity was observed in the broadcasting sector. Of the total 7.8 billion won allocated to broadcasting media, 3.3 billion won was spent on the private broadcaster UBC-TV, representing 42.5% of the broadcasting budget.
This amount exceeds the combined expenditures of MBC Ulsan (1.2 billion won) and KBS Ulsan (750 million won), which totaled 1.9 billion won by more than 1.3 billion won. The spending by broadcaster is as follows: UBC-TV (3.3 billion won), MBC Ulsan (1.2 billion won), YTN (786 million won), KBS Ulsan (750 million won), Yonhap News TV (494 million won), and JCN Ulsan Central Broadcasting (466 million won).
Due to the difficulty in verifying which factors influenced the actual spending decisions alongside quantitative indicators like viewership ratings and channel reach, there are calls within the local media community for clearer criteria to be established.
A representative from a local broadcaster, who requested anonymity, stated, "Even when considering various factors such as viewership ratings, production conditions, and reach, the rationale behind the continuous allocation of tens of billions to a specific private broadcaster needs clearer explanation. Since government advertising involves public funds, the criteria for allocation should be transparently disclosed."
Meanwhile, the total expenditure on print and internet advertising for central media outlets, classified as national and economic newspapers, amounted to 1.4 billion won. The previously mentioned total for print advertising was 2.4 billion won, which reflects the overall statistics for print media advertising across all outlets, while the 1.4 billion won represents the combined amount spent on print and internet advertising for central media outlets.
There were also notable disparities in the allocation among central media outlets. The Munhwa Ilbo received the highest amount among central media outlets, with a total of 253 million won from print advertising (134.9 million won) and internet banners (70.4 million won). Following it were the Chosun Ilbo (148.9 million won), Maeil Business Newspaper (135.5 million won), Hankook Ilbo (126.7 million won), Korea Economic Daily (116.6 million won), JoongAng Ilbo (110 million won), Kukmin Ilbo (10.3 million won), and Financial News (10.2 million won).
The issue lies in the lack of specific criteria to explain the disparities in spending between media outlets with relatively high allocations and others. Without transparency regarding how objective media strength indicators, such as circulation and online traffic, were factored into the allocation process, some outlets received budgets in the hundreds of millions while many national media received significantly less or no allocation at all.
An advertising department representative from a central media outlet commented, "Local government advertising typically considers media strength, reach, and suitability for policy promotion. However, in practice, qualitative judgments by the responsible department or public relations team often play a significant role. There needs to be clearer justification for allocations even within the same category of national and economic newspapers."
The print advertising expenditures for four local daily newspapers in Ulsan totaled 822 million won, with the Gyeongsang Ilbo receiving 234.2 million won, Ulsan Maeil 225.6 million won, Ulsan Sinmun 187.7 million won, and Ulsan Jeil Ilbo 174.7 million won. While there are differences among the outlets, the cumulative expenditures over the two years and five months ranged from 170 million won to 230 million won, showing relatively similar amounts.
Experts believe that to avoid a structure where local government advertising budgets are disproportionately concentrated on specific broadcasters or certain media outlets, it is essential to reduce the potential for subjective interpretation in spending practices and establish criteria that can be externally verified.
A local public administration expert stated, "Since government advertising budgets are public funds spent with taxpayer money, both quantitative criteria for media strength and qualitative judgment factors should be disclosed. Even if discretion by the responsible department is unavoidable, without explainable criteria, issues of fairness will inevitably arise."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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