The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday approved Formosa Hakka Radio’s (寶島客家電台) application to have its programs aired on other radio stations, but said it must first address the issue of embedded marketing in some of its programs.
Formosa Hakka is a non-profit radio station that receives subsidies from the Council for Hakka Affairs, commission spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said.
Chen said the commission had taped Formosa Hakka’s programs and found that two of them may have violated regulations banning embedded marketing from the government.
The commission will turn these two programs over to a content review committee composed of media experts not affiliated with the commission and let them determine if the programs had violated the Budget Act (預算法), he added.
Chen said that some people had accused the commission of being strict in dealing with embedded marketing from private businesses, but not with that involving the government.
NCC commissioners have decided to address that issue through this case, he said.
After asking the management of Formosa Hakka Radio to appear and answer questions from NCC commissioners yesterday, Chen said the commissioners spent almost an entire morning deliberating the case.
Jason Ho (何吉森), director of the commission’s communications content department, said two of the programs mentioned that they were sponsored by the Council for Hakka Affairs.
Moreover, they spent a considerable amount of time during the programs to promote an award hosted by the council.
“One of the programs, called 937 Hakka Cafe, was a two-hour program, but the host spent an hour interviewing the winners of the CFA award,” Ho said as an example.
“We will let the Directorate- General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics [the agency responsible for execution and compliance with the Budget Act] review the case and send it to the content review committee as well,” Ho said.
An amendment in the Budget Act requires that all government agencies and state-run enterprises to clearly mark policy advocacy as advertising.
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
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai