[2025 Audit] Minister Choi Hwiyoung: "Ministry's Oversight of Unregistered Entertainment Agencies Was Lax"

Choi Hwiyoung, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, is speaking at the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee's audit on the 14th. Photo by Yonhap News

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has acknowledged its lax oversight in allowing unregistered entertainment agencies to operate unchecked and announced plans to review the entire system.

At the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee audit on the 14th, Yang Moonseok, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Korea, pointed out, "Entertainment agencies are at the forefront of the K-culture industry, yet there is a proliferation of unregistered 'popular culture and arts planning businesses.' While there are about 2,200 individual and 4,500 corporate agencies registered, there is no classification by size, and the status of unregistered agencies is not even being tracked."

Assemblyman Yang criticized, "Since the enactment of the Popular Culture and Arts Industry Development Act in 2014, the Ministry has not conducted a single fact-finding survey. Even though the law specifies areas of education that agencies must fulfill-such as establishing fair business practices, protecting the rights and interests of children and adolescents, and providing sex education and suicide prevention education-the system is effectively not functioning."

He continued, "The law was created a decade ago precisely to prevent such misconduct, but the same problems are still recurring in the field. It is far too complacent for the Ministry, which touts the era of a 300 trillion won K-culture industry, to shift responsibility to local governments."

In response, Minister Choi Hwiyoung acknowledged, "That is an appropriate criticism," and admitted, "We have been negligent." He added, "Management of agencies has been lax, and I will make sure to address this matter thoroughly."

Minister Choi stated, "We will take measures to ensure unregistered agencies are quickly registered and incorporate related issues into the administrative management system as soon as possible. We will conduct a comprehensive review of the current state of agency management."

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