Inter-Korean broadcast war

Pyongyang Broadcasting Station of North Korea, which targeted South Korean audiences, carried radio programs giving random numbers until December 2000. They were weird programs in which announcers called numbers for 30 minutes from midnight after saying that an uncle in Pyongyang was sending the numbers to a niece in Seoul. “Niece in Seoul” was code for a certain spy in the South. The program then gave a series of numbers for 15 minutes and repeated them for another 15 minutes. Deciphering the numbers with a table unraveled Pyongyang’s directives.

The North stopped the program as the Internet grew popular in South Korea and radio waned. The communist country instead filled the radio station’s air time with propaganda praising the North and denouncing the South. The station remains on air for about 10 hours a day. The North is also operating Kaesong Broadcasting, which airs psychological warfare programs targeting South Korean audiences. Its airtime is irregular perhaps because of the North’s power shortages. The communist country also airs programs internationally targeting overseas Koreans with pro-Pyongyang inclinations. While all the programs are filled with clichés, they are aimed at brainwashing South Koreans by indefinitely repeating the same messages.

The South also has a number of broadcast operations involving Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), Far East Broadcasting and Arirang TV. KBS changed the Social Education Broadcasting into Hanminjok (Korean National) Broadcasting, shifting the target audience from North Koreans to ethnic Koreans living in China, Russia and other countries. Far East cannot be seen as a broadcaster targeting the North because its purpose is promotion of Christianity in communist countries. It is hard for North Koreans to watch Arirang TV because it requires Chinese TV sets able to receive signals from the South.

Broadcasts by North Korean defectors in the South perform a role existing South Korean broadcasters cannot not play. To avoid intervention from the liberal Roh Moo-hyun administration, the defectors began broadcasting by purchasing a shortwave frequency band from abroad. Shortwave signals can be sent to faraway places but sound quality suffers. Medium waves cannot go as far as short waves but has better sound quality.

Offering a way to overcome the limits, Choi See-joong, chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, told the National Assembly Tuesday that the panel will consider allotting a medium-wave frequency to air civilian broadcasting in the North. If this happens, North Koreans in South Pyongan Province and areas south of it can listen to South Korean broadcasts with clear sound quality. This could open the way for the South to let North Koreans know what is going on the Korean Peninsula and in the world.

Editorial Writer Lee Jeong-hoon (hoon@donga.com)