TV stations shy away from airing campaign events

The row over the broadcasting of election campaign activities which rattled campaign managers on Tuesday subsided yesterday when the TV stations decided against illegal broadcasts. The Central Election Commission did however say that there was nothing to stop the live broadcasting of campaign events on news programs.

The commission reminded broadcasters and political parties on Tuesday, one day before the official election campaign period got underway yesterday, that the broadcasting of campaign advertisements during the 10-day period would violate the Public Officials' Election and Recall Law. This ban also applies to broadcasts of any campaign activities before 7am and after 10pm.

The DPP initially said on Tuesday that it intended to circumvent the ban by billing its campaign events as "evening entertainment programs." The KMT said that it was prepared to observe the ban, but only if the DPP also did so. Otherwise, it said, it would also have its events aired as evening entertainment programs.

Then, late on Tuesday evening, the DPP announced that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had relented and decided that the DPP's remaining campaign events would not be broadcast.

ETTV, TVBS, Power TV, and FTV all announced yesterday that, rather than risk breaking the law, they would not broadcast campaign events.

Following their announcements, however, the commission said that there was nothing to stop campaign activities being broadcast on news programs, since such broadcasts would be considered "news items" and "there is no standard by which to judge whether such news reports involve the promotion of individual candidates."

Ma Yung-jen (馬詠仁), deputy general manager of ETTV's news department, said that the channel would exercise "news judgment" when deciding whether to broadcast campaign activities.

"We will report these events from a journalistic perspective. If the activity is interesting to us, we might broadcast it live and at length," Ma said.

Meanwhile, the opposition KMT has decided to broadcast a concert after 10pm on Nov. 30, the day before polling day. The Public Officials' Election and Recall Law states that campaigning must be confined to the hours between 7am and 10pm.

"The concert will not involve candidates -- only music. The concert is to comfort the Tai-wanese people once all the campaign activities are over," said Justin Chou (周守訓), a spokesman for the KMT.