By Cho Jae-hyon
Staff Reporter
KBS, the nation's largest public broadcaster, said it will file a suit against SBS, accusing the commercial network of fraud and breach of contract, Monday, as their talks on joint broadcasting of the upcoming World Cup finals came to a halt.
At a press conference KBS executives insisted that SBS had violated an agreement signed on May 30, 2006 by the three presidents of KBS, MBC and SBS. The agreement calls for the three broadcasters not to seek separate bidding for the rights to broadcast the 2010 and 2014 World Cups and the Olympic Games that take place between 2010 and 2016.
They attested that SBS was later found to have already secured exclusive contracts earlier that month to broadcast the World Cup and the Olympics in Korea.
"SBS signed a secret contract with IB Sports on May 8, even before the agreement made by presidents," said Lee Joon-an, a lawyer representing KBS. "While tying the hands of KBS and MBC, SBS obstructed KBS's and MBC's operations to bid for the broadcasting rights."
KBS recently made public the 2006 agreement containing the signatures of the three presidents.
"With this suit, we have no intention to fight SBS. What we are trying to do is protect the viewers' rights," said Cho Dae-hyun, a vice president of KBS. "Now the ball is in the court of SBS. We will drop the suit only if SBS faithfully carries out the agreement made among the three broadcasters in 2006."
KBS officials said it has sustained losses due to SBS breaching the contract.
In April 2006, KBS, MBC and SBS formed "Korea Pool" intended for the purchase of rights to jointly broadcast the World Cup and the Olympic Games.
On April 26, the Korea Pool submitted a bid to the International Olympic Committee but SBS submitted a separate bid on June 15 that was successful. It was $9.5 million higher than that offered by the pool.
SBS paid the IOC $72.5 million for exclusive broadcasting rights to both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games and bought the rights for the World Cup tournaments from the International Football Federation for $140 million.
Under the contract, SBS was the exclusive broadcaster in Korea for the recently ended Vancouver Winter Olympics.
SBS officials are claiming that the exclusive rights were purchased though fair deals.
However, KBS officials disagree.
"It goes against commercial practices to write a higher bidding price especially while knowing the bidding price of the Korea Pool," a KBS official said. "The purchase of the exclusive rights by SBS intentionally hampers the bids of other broadcasters to purchase broadcasting rights by deceiving those broadcasters."
Ahead of this year's World Cup, KBS and MBC requested the media watchdog Korea Communications Commission (KCC) to arbitrate in the dispute.
In response, the KCC ordered the broadcasters to begin negotiations on sharing the rights.