The National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday it will soon release a report on the shortcomings of last month’s television coverage of the Beijing Olympics. The report follows numerous complaints from viewers unhappy about the quality of broadcasts on the sports extravaganza.
After the Olympics, the commission entrusted an independent panel to review the performances of four television stations that had the rights to broadcast the Games: Taiwan Television (TTV,台視), China Television (CTV, 中視), Chinese Television System (CTS, 華視) and Formosa Television (FTV, 民視).
The panel has found that CTS was the only station that followed time limits for ad breaks.
FTV, on the other hand, was found to have inappropriately interrupted broadcasts with ads on three occasions, while CTV was reported to have canceled the coverage of a basketball game without prior notice and rerun the Games opening ceremony in its place.
More details of the investigation are expected in the next few weeks.
For the 2010 Soccer World Cup and 2012 London Olympics, the commission recommended that coverage not be restricted to the four channels.
Rather, cable television stations that could provide a digital service should be given the opportunity to cover the events as well.
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
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