Cite Media Holding Group’s (城邦媒體集團) application to establish a knowledge and lifestyle channel was approved yesterday by the National Communications Commission (NCC), which said the channel must strictly adhere to the nation’s media regulations.
The group is an affiliate of TOM Group, which is owned by Hong Kong business tycoon Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠). The approval will allow the billionaire to venture into Taiwan’s television network.
According to the NCC, the satellite television channel will broadcast humanities and lifestyle programs. It also plans to use Chunghwa Telecom’s multimedia-on-demand (MOD) system.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
NCC spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said the channel plans to task Hong Kong-based China Entertainment Television Broadcast (CETV) with producing programs, although the two will also jointly produce shows.
TOM Group’s CETV was recently given permission to air its programs in China’s Guangdong Province.
“The channel must follow Taiwan’s Satellite Television Act (衛星廣播電視法) and other relevant regulations when producing programs, particularly if its programming is to be produced by Hong Kong or China-based firms,” Chen said.
The channel was asked to formulate its own rules and self-regulate its own news reports about Cite Media Group, the NCC said, adding that it set this requirement because the group has a publishing firm and needs to maintain a clear separation between news and the advertisement of its products.
These two requirements will be used as standards in the NCC’s biennial evaluation of the channel, as well as its review of the channel’s license renewal application, Chen said.
Apart from Cite Media, Disney Group’s Disney Junior channel also secured NCC approval, provided that it carefully reviews the content of programs for children and youths imported from overseas.
However, the commission rejected EYE TV network’s (萬達超媒體) application to set up a knowledge and lifestyle channel on the grounds that the programs listed in its application indicated the channel’s rerun rate would reach 96.35 percent.
“The network’s two other channels — a drama and a travel channel — also have program rerun rates of about 80 percent,” Chen said. “This shows us that the network does not have an adequate number of television programs to sustain the operation of another channel.”
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by