South Korea's Broadcast Media Communications Commission said on Thursday it received a plan to boost shared growth and vitality in the home shopping sector. It aims to reduce institutional burdens on the home shopping industry and improve the effectiveness of support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The commission held its 12th plenary meeting for 2026 to discuss the plan. It consists of 6 tasks: strengthening qualitative management of programming for SME products; reviewing the creation of a dedicated data home shopping channel for SMEs and micro businesses; strengthening policy adjustment functions in carriage-fee negotiations; easing limits on scheduling flat-fee programmes for SME products; simplifying reapproval compliance checks; and improving screen-ratio rules for data home shopping.

On scheduling, it will shift the required programming ratio for SME products from quantitative to qualitative management. The ratio is 55 to 80 percent of annual total airtime for home shopping operators and 100 percent for Public Home Shopping. It plans to encourage a virtuous cycle so that the revenue base preserved through mandatory programming ratios circulates into support for SMEs.

For a dedicated data home shopping channel for SMEs and micro businesses, it will comprehensively analyse cases of expanded sales channels and growth within distribution platforms. It will then review the direction for introducing the channel and draw up detailed measures.

On carriage-fee negotiations, it will revise guidelines for broadcast channel use contracts. It will strengthen the role of a consultative body for verifying consideration to allow it to verify and adjust factors considered in negotiations.

It will slightly raise the current level of limits on scheduling flat-fee programmes as demand grows to use them as marketing tools for new and smaller brands. It will standardise a refund scheme under which home shopping operators return money to SMEs when sales targets are not met, and it will also review expanding prohibited acts against forcing flat-fee programmes.

For reapproval compliance checks, it will simplify items reviewed in business plans into categories including fair trade and SME promotion, protection of viewers' and consumers' rights and interests, and support for broadcasting development. It aims to reduce administrative burdens on operators.

For data home shopping screen-ratio rules, it will cut the ratio for the data area to 25 percent from the current 50 percent, while adjusting it to a level that ensures readability.

Chairman Kim Jong-cheol (김종철) said, "We will closely check market conditions so that the improved systems can take root in the field. We will also broadly accept stakeholders' opinions and continue to identify additional improvements."