It seems like only yesterday but really it has been almost a month since the MBC labor union went on strike against their MBC president, Kim Jae Chul and it certainly doesn't look like it will be ending anytime soon.
The strike had been waged by MBC staff as they felt that Kim Jae Chul who had only just assumed office in February, was turning the public broadcasting network into a puppet station of the Lee Myung Bak administration, disrupting the neutrality.
They are thus asking for him to step down. But as things stand, the situation is currently at a deadlock as neither side can come to an agreement
And with the strike, MBC were able to air relatively few new episodes of their programs in the past month. Although much of the cancelations can be linked with the Cheonan tragedy, the strike have also played a part.
Taking We Got Married as an example, it finally aired a new episode on April 24th, almost a month after the last was shown on March 27th. But it looks like it will be the only episode for a while as this was prepared for airing before the strike and had been canceled from being broadcast because of the Cheonan incident.
With no staff working on new episodes, MBC has been airing re-runs and special programs as replacements in the regular timeslots and they are not ruling out on acquiring programs to fill the spots for a longer strike.
With a new month fast approaching in May that promises so much, we certainly hope that the situation would be resolved as soon as possible. You can only wonder about the ill-effects like declining viewership ratings, drop in advertising revenue and the livelihoods of involved staff if this situation gets prolonged.
Many thanks to BEGISLOVE for the tip.
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