Wu Poh-hsiung resigns from CTV board

KMT Vice Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) announced yesterday that he was resigning from the board of the Chinese Television Company (CTV), effective immediately.

Wu announced his decision during a meeting of the party's Central Standing Committee.

He also urged the KMT to relinquish its interests in television and radio stations right away.

Wu's announcement comes amid a campaign by the government to eliminate political and military influence over the media.

The KMT owns a 35.6 percent share of CTV -- one of the country's four terrestrial TV stations -- and has a majority of shares in another, the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC).

KMT legislative leader Cheng Feng-shih (鄭逢時) said the party would deal with its shares in the two media organizations as soon as possible, which could mean putting the shares into a trust.

Wu also criticized the government's domination at the boards of the two other terrestrial stations, Taiwan Television (TTV) and Chi-nese Television System (CTS).

He said the DPP's reform efforts are just pretense since it is still exerting an influence on those two companies.

The government owns 24.36 percent of TTV's shares and 36.25 percent of CTS's shares, shares it inherited from the previous KMT administration.

Under the Government Information Office (GIO) media reform proposal, the government would make one of the station a public station and privatize the other.

The actual details of the plan, however, have yet to be decided.

In related news, GIO Deputy Director-General Hung Chiang-chuan (洪瓊娟) said yesterday that the agency is also evaluating the possibility of barring politicians' family members from holding shares in media companies.

"The theme of removing political and military influence from the media is to prevent any individual or group dominating any media organizations," Hung said.

"The proposed amendment [to the Broadcasting and Television Law (廣電法)] would bar politicians from holding media stocks, but they might still dominate the media by distributing their shares to family members," she said.

Officials said yesterday that the GIO plans to hold a public hearing next Monday to discuss the possibility of barring politicians' family members from investing in the media.