12 Home Shopping Operators Approved for 7-Year Renewal

Twelve home shopping operators whose licenses had expired have received a seven-year renewal.

The Broadcasting and Media Communications Commission (BMCC) held its 34th plenary meeting on September 9 and approved the renewal for the twelve home shopping companies.

The companies under review included Our Home Shopping, Home & Shopping, W Shopping, Shinsegae Live Shopping, CJ ENM, SSG.com, NS Shopping, GS Retail, TRN, KT Alpha, and Hyundai Home Shopping, all of which had their licenses expire between April and June of this year.

The BMCC reported that all twelve companies scored above the renewal threshold of 650 points out of a possible 1,000 and met at least 50% of the criteria in the evaluation process, thus securing a seven-year renewal.

The review committee was chaired by BMCC member Ryu Shin-hwan and included ten experts from various fields such as broadcasting, media, law, and accounting.

The renewal committee reviewed existing conditions for renewal and streamlined those that were outdated or redundant with other laws and regulations, while also specifying necessary conditions to reflect the characteristics of each operator.

Common conditions for all twelve companies included: clearly specifying the range of services provided to suppliers in contracts, prohibiting the unfair transfer of increased broadcasting fees to suppliers, and establishing fair trading practices to prevent unfair transactions and employee misconduct.

Individual conditions were also assigned based on the characteristics of each operator. For Our Home Shopping, requirements included securing outside directors and internal committees, while Home & Shopping was required to maintain a direct purchase ratio of over 20% for small and medium-sized enterprises and promote cooperative management. Additionally, they were prohibited from using the same name as their TV home shopping channel on data home shopping channels.

BMCC Chairman Kim Jong-cheol stated, "Home shopping is an important sales channel for small and medium-sized enterprises, and it must fulfill its role even in challenging distribution and media environments. The BMCC will also continue to implement necessary policy support to strengthen the competitiveness of home shopping operators and expand sales channels for small and medium-sized enterprises."

Meanwhile, the BMCC also approved an enforcement decree of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, which imposes fines of up to 6% for illegal spam, set to take effect on October 1.