Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) is South Korea's premier public broadcaster and the biggest one of three major Korean television networks. This public broadcasting network is best known for nightly newscasts and lavish historical dramas, although private broadcasters such as MBC and SBS have produced popular historical dramas in recent years as well.

KBS is a 'public organization' that is, by law, receives public fund by the Korean Government but independently managed from them. However, during the recent Korean history, KBS is largely regarded to be influenced by government because of the procedure with which its president is recruited. As mentioned on the Korean Constitution, President of KBS is recommended by its board of directors to the President of Korea. Political parties in Korea have rights to name members of board of directors of KBS. Since President of South Korea usually have leadership over the members of the ruling party, KBS' president is considered to be designated by the president of Korea. This procdeure that incurs worries of political intervention over KBS' governance has triggered many controversies over the needs of revamping recruiting procedure.

Around 37.8% of its revenue comes from a mandatory Television Licence Fee, while 47.6% of the revenue comes from commercial advertisement sales.[1] For services with national or governmental cause such as International Radio service (KBS World Radio) and Radio service for phisycally handicapped people, KBS receives public funds from the Korean government.


Terrestrial television

    * KBS1 - news, current affairs, education and culture. Launched 1961 as KBS-TV. KBS1 is solely run using License Fee and doesn't show any commercial announcement.
    * KBS2 - entertainment and sports. Launched 1964 as TBC-TV.

---

KBS World is the international television and radio service of KBS.

KBS World television is a television channel that is mostly comprised of programs commissioned for KBS' 2 terrestrial networks: KBS1 and KBS2. KBS World television is distributed over several international communication and broadcasting satellites such as IS-8, IS-9, IS-10, Hotbird 6, Galaxy 10R, Arabsat 4D. Local cable and/or satellite operators receive the signal from one of these satellite and carry the signal to end subscribers of their own networks. KBS doesn't allow individual viewer to receive the signal from IS-8, IS-9, IS-10 and Galaxy 10R. The signal from Arabsat 4D is Free-to-Air service while viewers using Hotbird 6 are required to pay monghly subscription fee. KBS World television is for both local people and Korean expatriates around the world. As of July 2007, around 65% of its programs are broadcast with English Subtitles. KBS World Japan is independently operated by KBS Japan, KBS' subsidiary in Japan and practically all programs are provided with Japanese subtitles.

KBS launched KBS World officially on July 1 2003. As of July 2007, KBS World television is available in 32 countries and reportedly more than 40 million households around the world are accessible to KBS World TV.

KBS World television runs on a 24hr schedule with programming ranging from news, sports, dramas, variety shows and children's programs. --wikipedia.org

Websites:

KBS Official Site (Korean)
KBS Global
KBS Global Marketing
KBS World