Kim Jong-il Sacks Confidant Over TV Ads

By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has fired the reclusive regime's top broadcaster for airing television commercials that promote its beer and other local products, sources here said Sunday.

Kim recently made the decision shortly after watching the advertisements on state television, the sources said.

Kim reportedly expressed his strong disappointment with Cha Sung-su, chairman of the North's Central Broadcasting Committee.

"They are as degrading as the ones that China had in its early reform", Kim was quoted as saying by a source.

Yonhap News reported that Cha may have been unduly victimized in the case because the commercials were a product of Kim's earlier instruction to create "more interesting and diverse" television programs.

The North's Korean Central News Agency played Pyongyang's first television commercial for "Taedong River Beer" from July 2, drawing media attention from around the globe.

The advertisement claimed that the beer was the "pride of Pyongyang", and certified under the ISO 9001 Quality Standard, an international quality management marker.

The commercial showed young women in traditional Korean dress serving frothy mugs of the beer to men in Western suits.

The state-run television station also played commercials for other products, including ginseng and quail, fuelling speculation that the Stalinist regime may have started to embrace capitalism.

Cha, 69, is known to be one of Kim's closest aides. He has reportedly accompanied Kim on public inspections more than six times since November last year, when the leader partially recovered from a stroke in August.

He was the North's top television man and served on its central broadcasting committee for four decades.

Cha is also widely known as a poet in the communist country. Some of his known works include "By the Car Window" and "Gun Salute".