The National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday it was considering canceling the rights for terrestrial television services to use some digital channels because it found that some of them had high program rerun rates.
The nation has five major terrestrial television networks, including Taiwan Television (TTV, 台視), China Television Co (CTV, 中視), Chinese Television System (CTS, 華視), Formosa Television (FTV, 民視) and the Public Television Service (PTS, 公視). Aside from the five main channels in analog services, each network has two digital channels that can only be viewed if the subscribers have installed set-top boxes.
NCC spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said the NCC was aware that some of these digital channels have very high program rerun rates.
“We gave the channels to them [networks], but they have not used them efficiently,” Chen said. “In the future, we might consider asking them to hand back some channels or to raise the percentage of programs made by Taiwanese producers.”
Chen said that some lawmakers proposed legislation mandating that at least 40 percent of the channels’ programs be locally produced. They said many channels now simply purchase programs from South Korea or other -countries to save on production costs, which in turn affects the local television industry.
NCC statistics showed that as of November last year a majority of the channels in terrestrial television networks had about 60 percent of their programs produced by local companies.
The NCC analyzed the programs by two main categories: those produced by the channels or that have never aired on other channels before; and reruns on the channels of the same or other networks.
While an average of 50 percent of the programs on the main channels are of the first category, many digital channels scored higher in the second category.
The CTS News Channel (中視新聞台), for example, has a program rerun rate of 93 percent. CTS Entertainment Channel (中視娛樂綜合台), meanwhile, has rerun rate of 97.6 percent.
All the programs on DIMO Channel, the digital channel of PTS, are reruns.
Chen said the commissioners would further discuss the plan, adding that it could encourage networks to provide better content and accelerate competition between terrestrial television services and cable television services.
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