The board of directors of national broadcaster KBS voted Thursday to dismiss its president for his alleged meddling in its news reporting in favor of the government, officials said Thursday, heralding an immediate end to a strike by KBS unionists.

The public network has been reeling from an internal crisis due to allegations that its chief Gil Hwan-young had yielded to pressure from the presidential office to demand news reports favorable to the Park Geun-hye administration.

Unionized employees of the broadcaster, including reporters,  have been on strike since last week, demanding Gil resign for the alleged news meddling, while filing a complaint against him for alleged violation of the broadcasting law.

Gil has denied the allegations, saying that he has no plans to step down.

During an emergency meeting on Thursday, the 11-member board of  directors decided to dismiss the president in a 7-4 vote.

The motion to fire Gil was submitted by board members affiliated with the opposition bloc, which has accused him of damaging confidence in the broadcaster with biased reporting and failing to cover stories in appropriate ways related to the deadly ferry disaster in April.

The board plans to request within several days that President Park discharge the disgraced chief. The process to select his successor will begin after Park's approval, according to KBS officials.

If the dismissal is approved, Gil will be sacked from the post with about half of his three-year tenure left.

It marks the second time that KBS' board of directors has voted to dismiss its president. The first time was in 2008 when then-chief Chung Yeon-joo was fired for his poor management of the broadcaster, including the bungling of personnel matters. 

Gil is also the third president of a public broadcaster to be fired when Kim Jae-chul, former president of MBC, is included. Kim was sacked by the company's largest shareholder, the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, for his alleged political bias in favor of then-President Lee Myung-bak.

KBS' two labor unions hailed the decision and promised to return to work immediately. But the more militant of the unions said its members could  stage another strike unless President Park approves the motion to sack the KBS chief.

"You can see this as a provisional return to work and provisional halt to the strike," the union said. "The strike can completely end only after the president approves the dismissal."

The internal feud at KBS began when its former news chief Kim Si-gon disclosed before reporters early last month that the presidential office and Gil had improperly intervened in the news reporting and personnel changes of the public broadcaster.

The disclosure led to a work boycott by an association of KBS journalists and joint strike by the company's two unions, resulting in the disruption of its news service. (Yonhap)