North Korea officially launched a seven-hour daily satellite television broadcast beginning October 10, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Tuesday.
"Television of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) can be viewed in all areas of Asia and most of European and African areas," KCNA said in a dispatch monitored in the South Korean capital Seoul.
It said (North) Korean Central TV would be televised via satellite from 4:30 p.m. through 11:30 p.m.
South Korea, which has banned its public from access to any of the North's propaganda-filled media for decades, Monday hinted it would gradually ease the restriction.
North Korea's state television network began transmitting a pilot operation through a Thai satellite on July 2, Seoul's unification ministry officials said.
If the restrictions are eased, South Koreans will be allowed to watch North Korean broadcasts for the first time since the Korean peninsula was split in 1945.
South Korean officials said Seoul's move to lift the ban reflected South Korea's confidence that the Stalinist North's political propaganda would not affect democracy in the south.
Observers admit it is technically impossible to prevent South Koreans with satellite dishes and converters from receiving the North's broadcasts.
South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung has recently pursued a conciliatory policy towards North Korea in an attempt to end the age-old rivalry between the two countries.
Korea's Practices Detente Via Satellite
Copyright 1999
