Busan City, Partial Disclosure of Advertising Expenses by Media... Full Disclosure After Objection

Busan Energy Justice Action "Prioritize Citizens' Right to Know"

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Jonghyo] Busan City, which has spent tens of billions of won annually on advertising budgets but has avoided disclosing detailed information about them, has finally decided to disclose its advertising (promotion) budget.

According to Busan Energy Justice Action on the 23rd, after filing an information disclosure request regarding the details of promotional expenses by media outlets in 2018 and 2019, the city revealed that it spent approximately 2.52 billion won on advertising and promotion in 2018 and about 2.85 billion won last year.

However, the city did not disclose the details of how much was spent per media outlet or the unit price for each advertising or promotional content.

Energy Justice Action stated, "The public's right to know is more important than the trade secrets of media companies, and disclosing advertising unit prices cannot be considered a violation of trade secrets," adding, "There have been rulings that public institutions must disclose which media outlets they contracted with and at what unit prices for advertising and promotion expenses," and raised objections.

Busan City accepted the objection and changed the status of advertising and promotional expenses by media from ‘partial disclosure’ to ‘full disclosure.’

A Busan City official said, "After consulting with the Korea Press Foundation, it was judged that it could be a business secret," adding, "After requesting an authoritative interpretation from the Ministry of Government Legislation and referring to past cases, it was finally determined that there was no reason for non-disclosure, leading to the conclusion of full disclosure."

Energy Justice Action said, "It is not right for public institutions operated with budgets funded by citizens' taxes to claim media companies' trade secrets," and added, "There have been rulings that public institutions must disclose which media outlets they contracted with and at what unit prices for advertising and promotion expenses. Although late, the decision to fully disclose advertising execution details by media outlets is a meaningful decision."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.