On the evening of August 15th, the Liberation Day of Korea, KBS aired the first part of “Korean Opera Festival Puccini Madama Butterfly” via 1TV. This opera is set in Japan and it deals with love between a Japanese woman and a US Navy office. The female lead acted in a kimono and kimigayo (the Japanese national anthem) was played in the wedding scene.
Hearing kimigayo being played on a Korean national broadcast on Liberation Day in Korea, many viewers were frustrated and they sent petitions to the KBS bulletin board. In particular, a petition quickly gained support from 8,000 people. If 1000 people agree with a petition within 30 days, the KBS executives must respond directly.
As criticism intensified, KBS hurriedly made an official statement. They said, “The performance was recorded on June 29th and scheduled to air at the end of July. However, the broadcasting plan was pushed back due to the Olympics and it was eventually aired at dawn on Liberation Day”, adding “Considering the change in the broadcasting schedule, we deeply apologize for causing a stir on the meaningful Liberation Day due to the production team’s negligence in checking whether the content and the time of the broadcast were appropriate. To prevent this from happening again, we will pay more attention to our production”.
“Madama Butterfly” Part 2, which was also scheduled to air at midnight on the 16th, has also been replaced with another performance broadcast.
In fact, KBS also made some other mistakes on Liberation Day. Just before the live broadcast of the 79th Liberation Day celebration ceremony, the symbols on the Korean national flag was shown in reverse. As such, viewers are harshly criticiing KBS for their unacceptable mistakes by a public broadcaster.
In addition, KBS 1TV aired “The Origin of Miracles” about former President Rhee Syngman as an Independent Movie Theater section. However, the Korean Film Countil categorized it as a documentary rather than an independent film.
Despite that, KBS still tried to air it as an independent film, causing the Korea National Union of Media Workers and netizens to call for the cancellation of the program. More than 7600 people also agreed with the petition to cancel the documentary.
Source: Daum
