The Tsai family that dominates the nation’s finance and telecom industries could soon fulfill its dream of branching out into the cable television industry after the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday that it is very likely to approve its purchase of 12 cable television systems owned by Kbro Co (凱擘), a multiple-system operator backed by the US-based Carlyle Group.
Local media reported that Fubon Financial Holding Co chairman Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and his brother, Taiwan Mobile Co chairman Richard Tsai (蔡明興) — sons of Tsai Wan-tsai (蔡萬才), who was ranked third on Forbes’ list of Taiwan’s 40 richest individuals this year with assets of US$5.3 billion — plan to buy the cable TV provider through a media company they set up called Dafu (大富).
Although the main Dafu shareholders also own shares of Taiwan Mobile, NCC Spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said Dafu would not qualify to be an affiliate of Taiwan Mobile. The shareholders hold about 17 percent of Taiwan Mobile and to become an affiliate, Dafu’s shareholders would have to own 50 percent of the shares of Taiwan Mobile, Chen said.
“Some people may be gauging the Tsai family’s influence in the cable television market by counting the subscribers of the four cable television systems that are owned by Taiwan Mobile,” Chen said. “When added up, the purchase would allow the family to own about 33 percent of the subscribers in the nation, which did not exceed the cap stated in the regulations.”
Although the NCC commissioners decided yesterday to continue the discussions next week, Chen said “the chances that this case would win the approval of the NCC commissioners are very, very high” as the commission found the purchase by Dafu did not have any investment from the government, political parties and the military, which would have created other legal obstacles to the deal.
According to the commission, the 12 cable television systems owned by Kbro had about 1.12 million cable television service subscribers nationwide as of June this year, which accounted for approximately 22.3 percent of the market share. The NT$36 billion (US$1.15 billion) deal has drawn attention as it creates a union between a major telecom operator and a key player in the cable television market.
Because the deal will bring tremendous change to the market, Chen said the commission hoped Dafu could make commitments about how it plans to provide digital cable television service, improve the quality of the programs aired through its cable television systems and provide assurances it will not deliberately boycott any channel from being broadcast on its system.
So far, the prevalence of digital cable television service in the nation is less than 5.7 percent, Chen said.
Additional reporting by CNA
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,