Beijing censors have pressured international cable channel MTV into cancelling a DPP-sponsored music program that would have aired before more than 47 million Chinese-speaking households, including homes in China, a DPP official said yesterday.
Phoenix Cheng (鄭運鵬), director of the party's Department of Culture and Information, said yesterday that China had put pressure on MTV because of its dislike of the DPP.
The program, called Charm Style Generation (嗆聲世代), which means "the generation that dares to challenge authority" in Hokkien, was to begin airing today and was scheduled to run three times weekly.
The idea was to have viewers visit the party's Web site at www.dpp.org.tw to choose for broadcast music videos that express young people's feelings toward society.
The program would also have carried the party's English abbreviation and was meant to promote the DPP's image in the lead up to the year-end elections for the Legislative Yuan.
"The Chinese authorities have opposed the DPP at every opportunity," Cheng said.
"They've just recently refused to issue a visa to Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), the DPP's chairman, for his visit to Hong Kong."
Cheng said that in anticipation of pressure from China, the party had agreed to exclude the DPP's Chinese name and green-and-white flag from the program.
Still, it wasn't expected that the music program would be cancelled outright.
Cheng also said that the KMT and People First Party have election campaign projects going with the music channel and noted that China has not interfered with those plans.
The DPP official claimed that Beijing authorities in charge of censoring media content issued threats to MTV, saying if it "didn't give up the program, the channel would have problems with its broadcast in China."
MTV is a popular channel among Taiwan's young people. According to MTV Networks, roughly 47 million Chinese-speaking households across Asia have access to the channel, and it's one of the most popular international TV channels on the mainland.
"China fears that the program would allow Chinese youth to really understand Taiwan's politics and perspectives, leading them to accept the way Taiwan is," Cheng said.
Cheng Ming-chun (鄭明椿), vice president of MTV Chinese, said the show was cancelled simply because "Chinese audiences are not familiar with the DPP."
The DPP official said the party plans to suspend all contracts with the music channel, including the broadcast of the party's commercials.
"But we will not take any legal action against them, because both the DPP and MTV are victims of China's pressure," Cheng said.
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