The National Communications Commission’s (NCC) conditional approval of a massive media merger on Wednesday marked the darkest day in the history of media freedom in the country and continued political interference in the media, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.
The party “strongly opposed” the commission’s approval of Want Want China Times Group’s (旺旺中時集團) NT$76 billion (US$2.52 billion) acquisition of cable television service provider China Network Systems (CNS, 中嘉網路), which would create an intermedia monopoly, DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said.
Lin said the party condemned the commission’s opaque, closed-door review of the merger application and demanded full disclosure of all records and video recordings of the meeting.
While the deal was neither legitimate nor urgent, it was hastily approved with one week left before the terms of the four remaining NCC commissioners ended, he said.
“We suspect that it was President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) paying back those corporates that supported his re-election bid,” Lin said, describing the deal as “political interference.”
A corporate head like Want Want Group chairman Tsai Eng-ming (蔡衍明), who has claimed that very few people actually died in the Tiananmen Square Incident in 1989 and that he did not understand why news reports cannot be sold for profit, is not qualified to run a media group, the DPP said, adding that was why academics and media watch groups here and abroad opposed the deal.
The party said that freedom of speech was deteriorating, with Taiwan’s global press freedom ranking by the US-based Freedom House dropping from 32nd in 2008 to 48th this year.
DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) questioned whether the three suspension clauses listed by the commission as mandatory requirements would be effectively implemented.
The three clauses require that Tsai sell CTiTV (中天電視), transform China Television Co’s (中視) CTV news channel into a non-news channel and that CTV establish an independent news review and editing policy.
While the term of the four commissioners — including NCC Chairperson Su Herng (蘇蘅) — run through the end of this month, the controversial deal, which had been stalled for 18 months, was hastily approved after two NCC meetings, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said.
“The three suspension clauses and the 25 additional clauses are meaningless if you cannot monitor whether they are actually implemented,” she said.
“Let me tell you what media monopoly is. It’s a media company with 19 TV channels, three newspapers and a magazine now adding 11 cable TV channels and which [has the power to] influence about a quarter of households with a TV nationwide,” DPP Legislator Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said.
Such a media monster would not exist in other democracies, she said, adding that the group would be able to remove the channels it dislikes.
It could even operate for political gain with its technology, which is able to record the viewing behavior of all home users and get to know their political affiliation and use this information as a campaign tool, Cheng said.
“In other words, it can manipulate the democratic system we now enjoy,” she said.
GET TO SAFETY: Authorities were scrambling to evacuate nearly 700 people in Hualien County to prepare for overflow from a natural dam formed by a previous typhoon Typhoon Podul yesterday intensified and accelerated as it neared Taiwan, with the impact expected to be felt overnight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, while the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration announced that schools and government offices in most areas of southern and eastern Taiwan would be closed today. The affected regions are Tainan, Kaohsiung and Chiayi City, and Yunlin, Chiayi, Pingtung, Hualien and Taitung counties, as well as the outlying Penghu County. As of 10pm last night, the storm was about 370km east-southeast of Taitung County, moving west-northwest at 27kph, CWA data showed. With a radius of 120km, Podul is carrying maximum sustained
Tropical Storm Podul strengthened into a typhoon at 8pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with a sea warning to be issued late last night or early this morning. As of 8pm, the typhoon was 1,020km east of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving west at 23kph. The storm carried maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts reaching 155kph, the CWA said. Based on the tropical storm’s trajectory, a land warning could be issued any time from midday today, it added. CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said Podul is a fast-moving storm that is forecast to bring its heaviest rainfall and strongest
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday criticized the nuclear energy referendum scheduled for Saturday next week, saying that holding the plebiscite before the government can conduct safety evaluations is a denial of the public’s right to make informed decisions. Lai, who is also the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), made the comments at the party’s Central Standing Committee meeting at its headquarters in Taipei. ‘NO’ “I will go to the ballot box on Saturday next week to cast a ‘no’ vote, as we all should do,” he said as he called on the public to reject the proposition to reactivate the decommissioned
TALKS CONTINUE: Although an agreement has not been reached with Washington, lowering the tariff from 32 percent to 20 percent is still progress, the vice premier said Taiwan would strive for a better US tariff rate in negotiations, with the goal being not just lowering the current 20-percent tariff rate, but also securing an exemption from tariff stacking, Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said yesterday. Cheng made the remarks at a news conference at the Executive Yuan explaining the new US tariffs and the government’s plans for supporting affected industries. US President Donald Trump on July 31 announced a new tariff rate of 20 percent on Taiwan’s exports to the US starting on Thursday last week, and the Office of Trade Negotiations on Friday confirmed that it
RSS