Taiwan is likely to become a member of an international audit organization for publication circulation next week, a decision pending the final approval of the organization's General Assembly in November, a board member of the organization told the Taipei Times in an exclusive interview yesterday.
Glenn Hansen, who is also the president and chief executive officer of BPA Worldwide, said that this year two countries in Asia had shown interest in becoming members of the International Federation of Audit Bureaux of Circulations (IFABC).
The two applicants are Taiwan and China.
While Taiwan will use the name Chinese Taipei ABC, Beijing will use the Sino Publication Audit Center.
Hansen said any organization in Asia wishing to become a member of IFABC’s regional group — the Asia Pacific ABC — must have their application approved the first.
The regional group is scheduled to meet in Bali, Indonesia, next week. The group meets once or twice a year.
For Taiwan’s application, Hansen said the group had already been formed and that it was interested in becoming a member of the international federation. He said he was optimistic this would happen.
He said the group representing Taiwan had been working on the case for two years and that it would put the application before the global membership meeting in Mexico in November during the General Assembly, when a vote on the application would take place, he said.
Only two newspapers in Taiwan — the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) and the Apple Daily — have their circulation audited by the IFABC. For the first quarter this year, the daily circulation of the Liberty Times was 703,630, or about 200,000 more than that of the Apple Daily.
In 2004, the Government Information Office sought to hire a non-profit private organization to study the basic structural elements of the print media, including circulation, readership and financial resources. However, outcry forced the government to abandon the plan because some media outlets argued that such a move would reveal sensitive information to the public and subsequently affect advertising volume.
Hansen said he did not know what happened four years ago, but that the government should not play any role in the sector because less government regulation is better.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations was formed in 1914 by advertisers, advertising agencies and publishers in the US as a voluntary cooperative program. In the 1920s and 1930s, several other countries established similar organizations.
Founded in 1963, IFABC is a voluntary cooperative federation of industry-sponsored organizations established to verify and report facts about the circulations of publications and related data.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it