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Taipei calls on government to reorganize cable output

The Taipei City Bureau of Information yesterday said it would ask the Government Information Office (GIO) to corral cable channels into categories so subscribers can choose and pay only for the channels they want.

Under the proposal, channels will be grouped into categories such as movies and news, with subscribers able to pick out the exact channels they want instead of having to pay for a cable package that comes with a number of stations and programs they never watch.

However, for the plan to go ahead the bureau needs the help of the information office, bureau director Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said.

"To separate the channels and group similar ones together, the similar channels need to be near to each other on the channel selector," Wu said. "For example, right now the terrestrial channels TTV [channel 8], CTV [channel 10], CTS [channel 12], FTV [channel 6] are close together, but PTV [channel 53] needs to be moved to be in the same cluster, and only the GIO can do that."

"Also, the companies are charging a substantial fee [NT$550 to NT$600 a month] for the cable channels, and the public already has a number of channels to watch. They may not be interested in paying for extra digital channels," Wu said, referring to a new digital television service recently greenlighted by the government that is at the center of a tug-of-war between controling authorities and the nation's television industry.

"By allowing subscribers to choose between cable channels and not have to pay for all available channels, they are more likely to pay for new digital channels," Wu said.

The GIO has approved three major providers of 16 new digital channels, but before the service can start local governments must first individually approve subscription fees.

The service providers are asking between NT$5,000 to NT$6,000 for the descrambler required to receive the transmission. Alternatively, subscribers can pay a monthly rental fee of NT$200. For each channel subscribers must pay an additional subscription fee.

Wu said that according to market research undertaken by the committee in charge of the Taipei fee review, the descrambler should cost between NT$1,000 and NT$3,500.

New Party City Councilor Fei Hung-tai (費鴻泰) also questioned the price of the new digital channels.

"The committee should review and agree to the fee only when the companies provide a clear list of costs," Fei said. "Now what are their costs? The cables they need for digital television are the same ones used for cable TV. Have they hired new people to manage the new service or are they are just expanding their business with their current staff?"

Fei said that according to his own research on the price for a descrambler in the US, based on the prices of six different models, a descrambler costs between NT$1,000 and NT$1,900.
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