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.”
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