Lotte Home Shopping Banned from Early Morning Broadcasts for 6 Months... "Will Ensure No Harm to Partner Companies"

Deliberate Omission of Employee Crimes in Reapproval Review
Broadcast Suspension Due to Government Sanction 'First in Home Shopping Industry'

Lotte Homeshopping logo. (Photo by Lotte Homeshopping)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] Lotte Homeshopping has been prohibited from broadcasting during early morning hours for six months starting February next year due to violating the Broadcasting Act by deliberately omitting employees' criminal activities during the broadcast re-approval review process.

On the 7th, Lotte Homeshopping stated, "We will faithfully comply with the given sanctions and do our best to prevent damage to small and medium-sized partner companies." Currently, during the prohibited broadcast hours from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., Lotte Homeshopping airs reruns, and from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., it conducts live broadcasts. Since this time slot mainly features products from small and medium-sized partner companies, it is expected that these partners will inevitably suffer losses due to the broadcast suspension.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced that following the Supreme Court ruling confirming the suspension order against Lotte Homeshopping, TV home shopping broadcasts will be banned for six hours daily from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. during the specified period. This is the first time the government has suspended broadcasts in the home shopping industry. The Ministry of Science and ICT has instructed Lotte Homeshopping to notify the public of this suspension through broadcast captions and its internet homepage at least 14 days before the suspension and to display captions on the suspended screen during the suspension hours.

In 2014, ten current and former executives of Lotte Homeshopping were prosecuted on charges including receiving bribes from suppliers. Later, when applying for channel re-approval to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (now the Ministry of Science and ICT), it was revealed that the company deliberately omitted the criminal activities of its employees, resulting in a six-month business suspension in 2019. Lotte Homeshopping filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Science and ICT to cancel the suspension order but the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling against the plaintiff on the 30th of last month.

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