(LEAD) MBC chief offers to step down in protest over executive appointments
SEOUL, Feb. 8 (Yonhap) -- The head of South Korea's second-largest TV network MBC offered to step down Monday after the company's biggest shareholder rejected his picks for high-level posts.
Ohm Ki-young made the offer after the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, which has a 70 percent stake in MBC, decided in a shareholder meeting to fill three vacant executive posts with officials other than those he had suggested.
His term as CEO of MBC officially expires in February 2011.
The foundation was set up in 1988 to oversee MBC after taking over the shares in the broadcaster from the government. Its members are currently appointed by the Korea Communications Commission, the country's broadcasting watchdog.
Ohm made a similar resignation offer in December, but the foundation rejected it then.
He started his career as a journalist in 1974, gained popularity while anchoring a prime-time MBC news program and was elected the firm's president last year.
Following Ohm's offer, representatives of the broadcaster's labor union resolved to conduct a vote to decide whether or not to go on a general strike to protest the appointment of the three executives. Voting will be held this week and next week at regional offices of the TV network.
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