When Premier Yu Shyi-kun announced late last year that the Government Information Office (GIO, 新聞局) had earmarked nearly NT$10 million in order to fund a new English-language news venture, both terrestrial and cable news networks jumped at the opportunity to produce the show.
In all, five major television-stations and one lesser-known communications company submitted bids to the GIO. The nearly NT$10 million prize in annual funding, however, was awarded to Chinese Television System (CTS, 中華電視公司), whose English language newscasts went to air at 11pm on Feb. 1.
"We received bids from both terrestrial and cable channels. It was felt, however, that because the areas in which certain cable channels can be received are somewhat limited, putting such a show on a terrestrial channel would enable us to reach a wider audience," explained Su Ruey-ren (蘇瑞仁), Director of the Department of Domestic Information (DDI, 國內新聞處).
CTS might have won the lucrative prize, but it was piped to the post by Formosa Television (FTV, 民視電視公司) and its English language newscast, which hit the airwaves at 11pm on Jan. 31.
And, as if two English language newscasts weren't enough, CTS and FTV will be joined by yet another company in early June, when the GIO puts the final touches to its plan to create an entire English language news channel. "It's still under internal review, but beginning sometime in June we hope to see an entire channel broadcasting both locally produced news programs as well news from CNN and the BBC," continued the DDI director. "The amount of funding such a venture will receive, however, has yet to be finalized."
All of which, if sufficient funds can be found, looks set to pave the way for a never-before-seen ratings war, a war in which locally produced English-language television newscasts battle it out for top honors.
Primarily aimed at informing the nation's non-Chinese speaking residents about events in Taiwan and doubling as a learning platform for non-native speakers, English-language newscasts are not new to Taiwan. The format is, however, one that has proven unsustainable. All previous attempts at beaming English-language television newscasts into Taiwan homes have floundered.
The nation got its first taste of English language television news in September 1994 when it woke up to China Television Company's (CTV, 中國電視公司) Good Morning, CTV News. A 30-minute combination of news, weather and traffic updates, the daily news show -- considered a "service" for the 600,000 foreign nationals estimated by CTV to be living in Taiwan in the mid-1990s -- was plagued with problems from the outset. Poor ratings, little advertising revenue and content that was no more than a mouthpiece for the then ruling KMT saw the show axed after only a year.
"The idea of the free press was a relatively new concept in Taiwan in the mid-1990s and management basically ordered the reporters/producers to give an inordinate amount of positive coverage of the KMT," recalled Ian Lamont, a writer and narrator for Good Morning, CTV News. "I think it was a good program, considering the limitations, but at the end of the day the numbers just weren't there and it became hard for CTV to justify the cost of the program."
In a joint venture with CNBCAsia, the then fledgling cable network, Eastern Multimedia Group (ETTV, 東森媒體事業群) began airing a 30-minute English news program in the early evenings in December 1997. Like its terrestrial predecessor, however, the show struggled with organizational and financial problems.
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