Four months after taking office as chief executive officer of Next Media's (壹傳媒集團) new TV station, former Taipei deputy mayor King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) said yesterday he would step down at the end of the month.
“I tendered my resignation in May. I will step down [as head of the TV station] at the end of June and will take my kids abroad for their summer vacation in July,” King told reporters after he finished his run in an athletic competition in Kaohsiung County yesterday.
King said he decided to leave the TV station because he and Next Media founder and chairman, Jimmy Lai (黎智英), did not see eye to eye on how to run a TV station. He did not elaborate.
“Maybe we cannot work together, but we're still good friends,” King said yesterday.
King, a long-term aide to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), accepted Lai's invitation in February this year to head the new TV station, which is still in the preparatory stage.
Rumors, however, started to fly earlier this month that King and Lai had different ideas on how the TV station should be run.
Rong Fu-tian (戎撫天), a Yuan Ze University information and communications professor who has worked as a manager in several local media outlets, said on his blog that Lai wanted to use computer-generated animation technology in news reporting, but King disagreed.
Local media also said King disagreed with Lai's plan to make the new TV station a 24-hour live news channel.
King yesterday said he had no plans to join politics or any media organization at present.
“I don’t have any concrete plan at the moment, but will probably find a teaching job abroad,” King said.
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