The Chinese Television System (CTS) would be the nation's first government-owned terrestrial TV station to be made into a "publicly operated" station, the Government Information Office (GIO) announced yesterday.
"Before an independent national communication commission (NCC) is established, one of our future missions is to integrate the Public Television Service (PTS) with four other public service TV channels, including CTS, into a public television group before the end of next year," GIO Director-General Lin Chia-lung (
The Broadcasting and Television Law (
The government owns 75.04 percent of CTS and 47.39 percent of Taiwan Television (TTV).
The GIO plans to take a gradual approach to the issue of making CTS and TTV publicly operated, Lin yesterday officially announced that the GIO will start with the CTS, then decide later whether to commercialize TTV or integrate it into the public television group, which would be allowed to run commercials.
Lin yesterday also called on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to sell its stake in China Television Company (CTV) and Taiwan Television (TTV) before the party releases some of its shares in the party-run Hua-Hsia Investment Holding Co to investors.
Through the company, the KMT owns a 65 percent stake in CTV and a 10 percent stake in TTV. Party authorities are hoping to get NT$8 billion (US$235 million) by selling the shares in CTV, the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC), the Central Motion Picture Corp, the Central Daily News and China Daily News in a single block offering before next year.
During yesterday's symposium, experts from around the world shared their own country's experience of public broadcasting.
Keynote speaker Hansjurgen Rosenbauer, president of International Public Television Conference (INPUT), said that there is a bright future for public service television.
"To the surprise of many critics, public television in many countries has proven that it can be creative, innovative and challenging, when it is put under pressure by commercial competition and political criticism," he said.
One of its biggest challenges for the future of public service television, Rosenbauer said is the diversification of programming that will go along with the increasing availability of digital channels and the use of the Web.
"The bottom line ... is adequate funding by the public, independence from advertisers and as much independence as possible from party politics," he said.
Paul Norris, head of New Zealand's Broadcasting School at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, focused on the changes in New Zealand's broadcasting over the past 15 years.
"The state broadcaster of New Zealand is now a hybrid, with a dual role," he said. "On the one hand, it must deliver what is required under the Charter. On the other hand, it must maintain its commercial performance."
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