While the Cabinet's stated policy is to sell the government's shares in two terrestrial TV stations, the Government Information Office (GIO) has not yet decided whether to sell the stock to conglomerates or convert one or both stations into a public television channel.
GIO Director-General Huang Hui-chen (黃輝珍) told lawmakers during a legislative committee meeting that the GIO has mapped out three possible scenarios for the two stations, Taiwan Television (TTV) and China Television System (CTS).
PHOTO: CNA
"One possibility is to nationalize the two, another is to privatize them and the other is to privatize one of them and nationalize the other," Huang said. "However, I don't expect to come to the final decision until the end of this month."
The GIO plans to hold public hearings to solicit opinions from media activists, academics and experts by the beginning of next month before sending the draft statute regulating the shares in TTV and CTS by the end of next month.
The government owns 25.64 percent of TTV and 36.25 percent of CTS. The stakes in the two companies long predate the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) owns a 35.6 percent share of Chinese Television Company (CTV) and has a majority of shares in the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC).
To free the media from political influence, the legislature passed draft amendments to the Broadcasting and Television Law (
The law -- which integrates the Terrestrial Radio and Television Law of 1976, the Cable, Radio and Television Law of 1993 and the Satellite Radio and Television Law of 1999 -- also asked the Cabinet present a measure on government shares at TTV and CTS six months after the law took effect.
According to a GIO official who asked not to be named, to privatize the TTV and CTS would be the fastest and easiest scenario although he did not disapprove of integrating the two into one public TV station.
"However, we need either the consent of the shareholders or the authorization of the law," the official said.
The official accented that the final measure the GIO adopts in the future will be legal, feasible and would not create a financial burden for the government.
Although some media watch groups have called on the GIO to turn the two stations into a single public station, the official said that the proposal sounds unfeasible unless the Cabinet is authorized or has sufficient funding to do so.
"We're not a Communist country where the government can order the dissolution of a private company," the official said, adding that the establishment of a public television might take about NT$6 billion to NT$10 billion, not to mention the annual funding to keep it afloat.
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