North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

Until the 1990s, the electronic media were divided into two systems, television and radio.
During the late 1990s, KCNA established an Internet website and began releasing stories and
announcements on a daily basis.
The three principal television stations within the DPRK are Korean Central Television
(KCTV), Mansudae TV, and Kaesong TV. The KCTV network is by far the largest and covers
almost the entire nation. Its programming includes news, educational, and entertainment shows;
however, it mimics the print media in praising Kim Chong-il, publicizing KWP policies and
denouncing the ROK and the United States. Mansudae TV can be considered the cultural
channel of the DPRK’s electronic media, as its primary programming is art and movie programs.
It only broadcasts on weekends and special occasions in the P’yongyang area. Kaesong TV is
used almost exclusively for propaganda broadcasts to the ROK.
The leading radio station in the DPRK is the Korean Central Broadcasting Station
(KCBS). Its broadcasts consist of domestic and foreign programs and can be heard in eight
languages besides Korean. Programming is similar to the print media, although there are a larger
percentage of press reports from the Korean Central News Agency and there are a number of
programs for children and youth. Radio Pyongyang broadcasts to the ROK with programs
extolling the virtues of Chuch’e, the superiority of the DPRK, criticisms of ROK society, etc.
This station is under the direct control of the KWP’s Unification Front Department.
In addition to these radio stations, there is the “Voice of National Salvation” (VNS)
allegedly the clandestine radio station of the underground National Democratic Front
(Hanminjon) broadcasting from somewhere within the ROK. In reality, its transmitter is in Haeju,
and the “Chilbosan Liaison Office” - a component of the KWP’s intelligence system - manages
the station. It broadcasts propaganda that is directed specifically towards ROK children and
youth. The staff of the Chilbosan Liaison Station includes a high percentage of defectors from
the ROK, a number of whom have permission to listen to ROK radio broadcasts and watch ROK
television in order to become familiar with the words, customs, and popular feeling within the
ROK, thereby making the VNS broadcasts more authentic.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) is the DPRK’s only press agency. On the
surface, it generally functions like other press agencies, receiving foreign wire dispatches and
conveying them to newspapers and radio stations, maintaining contracts with foreign news
agencies, employing overseas correspondents, etc. In reality it focuses on publicizing the
DPRK’s positions to the world and is under the same stringent censorship as all the other DPRK
media outlets.
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