Nearly 100 staff members of the Chinese Television System (CTS) lodged a protest with the Legislative Yuan yesterday against the Government Information Office's (GIO's) plan to relocate CTS, one of the five terrestrial television channels, to southern Taiwan.
The Legislative Yuan was supposed to screen a bill on the disposal of public stakes in terrestrial television stations yesterday, and GIO Minister Pasuya Yao (
Venting their anger with the GIO's idea, CTS labor union members called the idea "reckless," claiming that implementing it "would not only infringe upon the rights of CTS workers, but would also drain television news resources and waste taxpayers' money."
Union leader Chu Chun (
"The GIO is asking CTS to relocate to the south without first heeding professional evaluations or the business ecology of the TV industry," he claimed.
Chu said he hopes agreements reached between management and labor groups will be included in the bill on the disposal of public stakes in terrestrial television stations so that the rights and interests of TV workers can be protected.
Meanwhile, the GIO said that nearly half of the respondents to a recent opinion poll have thrown their support behind the proposed relocation of CTS to southern Taiwan.
The GIO commissioned a private public opinion research group to survey the attitudes of local people toward the proposal to have a public-service terrestrial television headquartered in southern Taiwan.
Of the 1,072 valid samples collected in the survey, 46.4 percent said it is "very appropriate" or "appropriate" to have a public-service terrestrial TV station headquartered in southern Taiwan, while 28.5 percent of respondents thought otherwise.
As to where the relocated terrestrial TV should be headquartered, 47 percent chose Kaohsiung City or Kaohsiung County.
The poll also found that people were divided over the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) sale of its controlling shares in three media outlets -- China Television Co, Broadcasting Corp of China and China Motion Picture Co -- to a holding company led by the China Times Group.
While 31.9 percent of the respondents gave a thumbs-up to the KMT-China Times Group deal, 34.6 percent opposed the deal.
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