Taiwanese bid farewell to 2006 among a haze of firework smoke and musical performances this year as local governments teamed up with television networks and artists in a flurry of New Year's Eve parties across the country. The events may have helped companies capitalize on advertising dollars, but they didn't leave viewers with much variety or substance.
A survey by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister paper), showed more than NT$150 million (US$4.6 million) was spent on the evening's festivities nationwide, of which less than one-third was paid for by local governments.
Instead, television networks were the biggest sponsors. In Taipei, the city government spent NT$2 million, while TVBS forked out NT$20 million for their joint party.
CTV paired up with the Taoyuan County government and GTV partnered with the Taichung City government for their respective celebrations.
Despite the expense to the broadcasting companies, it was a safe investment with advertising prices at twice the normal rate on the night. Local politicians got free publicity as well.
Tien Ling-hu (
Unfortunately, viewers flicking through the channels had a hard time telling one event from the next.
Artists performed, then joined the mayor and other officials for the countdown. But for young fans unable to shell out NT$3,000 for tickets to a Jolin Tsai (
But Chuang Chi-ming (莊淇銘), president of National Taipei University of Education, criticized the carnival-style events for being superficial and wasting people's hard-earned money.
He questioned whether squeezing together to shout "five, four, three, two, one" is really what New Year is supposed to be about.
Hu Yu-wei (
He also criticized standing around for half-a-day to watch a 100-second fireworks display as being shallow.
Josephine Ho (
Chang Hsiao-feng (
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