Employees from the nation’s two largest TV shopping networks yesterday lodged a protest with the National Communications Commission (NCC), calling on the media regulator to properly review the application from multiple service operator Kbro Co to replace the TV shopping channels.
Kbro had applied to replace the channels of Eastern Home Shopping and Leisure Co (EHS, 東森得易購) with those of U-Life (森森百貨), but NCC approval is necessary for the deal to go ahead.
Representatives from U-Life and EHS both submitted petitions to the NCC as the commission was scheduled to continue its review of Kbro’s application yesterday morning.
Wearing face masks, 60 U-Life employees held up placards demanding that the NCC refuse to hand out special favor or preferential treatment to EHS.
The NCC’s failure to exercise its administrative authority to review the case was an indication of administrative discretion, U-Life said.
U-Life general manager Li Deng-ke (李登科) said the Fair Trade Commission and consumer protection bureaus in eight local governments had all said that Kbro’s application to replace EHS with U-Life was a business transaction and did not violate the Fair Trade Act (公平交易法) or any related regulations. However, the NCC has delayed its ruling on the case.
“Over the past seven months, EHS has not had a contract with Kbro and not paid any channel rental fee,” Li said. “U-Life has a contract and is obligated to pay a daily rental fee of NT$1 million in rent to Kbro. As a result, accumulated financial losses have topped NT$200 million (US$6.7 million), which threatens the jobs of 800 U-Life employees.”
U-Life also said that the NCC spent only 20 days reviewing the application of the earlier MSO Taiwan Broadband Communication (TBC) proposal to replace U-Life with EHS, but had taken 104 days to review Kbro’s application to replace EHS with U-Life and still had not made a decision.
EHS representative Chang Chi-hua (張起華) said the company had yet to receive any official response from local consumer protection bureaus, adding that the NCC’s -ruling would affect EHS’ operations.
Meanwhile, Kbro chairman James Cheng (鄭俊卿) briefed the NCC yesterday on how the company would handle the change in channel lineup and protect consumer interests.
NCC acting spokesperson Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said the commission had decided to review the case at a later date, because commissioners had asked for more information from Kbro on how it would ensure any change in channel lineup was handled fairly.
NCC member Huang Chin-yi (黃金益) said he did not think the case could reasonably be compared to that of TBC.
Kbro filed the application to change the channel lineup after the commission reviewed the cable service’s monthly subscription fee and the number of channels included in the service, the former being dependant on the latter.
The proposed change filed by Kbro, including the home shopping channels and others, accounts for 22 percent of the channels included in its cable service.
TBC has about 690,000 subscribers, whereas Kbro has 1.1 million subscribers, Huang said.
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
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
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,