Phoenix Satellite Television Hold-ings Ltd asked Taiwan to reconsider a decision to block China's biggest foreign broadcasting from airing programs in the country, company spokesman Howard Ho said.
Taiwan's Government Information Office approved in May Phoenix's application to broadcast the Chinese-language InfoNews Channel, then retracted the permit in September. Phoenix appealed last month and expects a hearing in December, Ho said.
"We regret the GIO's decision, but we still hope we can convince them and be able to broadcast in every country where there are Chinese people," Ho said.
Taiwan doesn't want too many China-backed channels in the country in advance of parliamentary elections scheduled for Dec. 1, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported yesterday. GIO spokesman Cha Yung-chiang and Ho both declined to comment.
Phoenix wants to boost its profile by airing InfoNews on Taiwan, where it would compete with more than 100 other channels, including Beijing-owned China Central Tele-vision, for an audience among the nation's 22 million residents.
Hong Kong-based Phoenix, which also broadcasts in North America and western Europe, Hong Kong and southeast Asia, is run by former People's Liberation Army officer Liu Changle. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns 38 percent of the company.
In China, Phoenix distributes the Chinese Channel to about 42 million viewers, and is seeking a license for InfoNews, which it may not receive this year amid reports that CCTV wasn't happy with Phoenix's blanket coverage of the Sept. 11 US attacks, not matched by the government broadcaster.
The Hong Kong-listed broadcaster turned to a loss of HK$34.9 million (US$4.5 million) in the three months through Sept. 30 from a profit of HK$51.4 million the same period year earlier.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained