CtiTV’s Variety Channel was fined NT$1 million (US$34,000) yesterday for its entertainment talk show Here Comes Kangxi (康熙來了), as one episode failed to clearly distinguish between an advertisement and programming.
Jason Ho (何吉森), director of the National Communications Commission’s (NCC) communication content department, said the decision was reached by an independent committee of experts not affiliated with the commission entrusted with reviewing programs and advertisements on TV and radio.
Among the 20 experts attending the review meeting, 16 voted for the channel to be penalized for violating the Satellite Television Act (衛星廣播電視法), Ho said, adding that the amount was determined based on the channel’s past record of violations.
Ho said the experts reviewed an episode aired in September last year that featured popular band May Day (五月天) and their 3D movie.
“One of the TV hosts kept holding up a poster for the movie,” Ho said. “Not only did the camera take a special shot of the poster, the host also repeated a line said by one of the characters in the movie.”
Aside from showing a trailer for the movie in the episode, Ho said one of the commercials aired during the one-hour show was also about May Day’s 3D movie and that it lasted 60 seconds. Toward the end of the show, the host also asked the band’s lead singer, A-shin (阿信), to tell the audience the release dates of the movie in Taiwan and China.
Taiwan Television (TTV) was penalized NT$600,000 for its show Sisters (姊妹) for a similar violation.
Ho said an episode gave detailed introductions of the pastries produced by a specific company and the firm’s brand logo could be clearly seen on the uniform worn by one of the characters. All the pastries presented in the episode could be found on the company’s official Web site, he said.
Eleven experts on the independent committee voted for the penalty, Ho said.
“The dialogue [about the pastries] lasted about three minutes, which clearly served to advertise the products,” Ho said, citing the opinions of experts. “It was intended to encourage consumers to purchase the products.”
Meanwhile, AXN, Hollywood Movies and the Star Movie Channel were fined NT$300,000, NT$200,000 and NT$200,000 respectively for violating the TV rating system and broadcasting movies containing violence and bloodshed in parental-guidance hours.
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
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,
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