Legislative caucuses, including the Chinese Nationalist Party, the Democratic Progressive Party, as well as the Taiwan Solidarity Union and other parties, reached a consensus yesterday to pass an amendment to three media laws, but they decided to leave some of the controversial articles unchanged or unstipulated.
The amendment could finally secure approval from the legislature’s general assembly today after being stalled at the Legislative Yuan for more than three years.
The result came after various caucuses in the Legislative Yuan debated the amendment more than five times in the legislative session.
Many observers had said the chances the amendment would secure legislative approval were very low.
“We are glad that the party caucuses have had the political foresight to pass the majority of the articles in the three medial regulations,” National Communications Commission (NCC) Chairperson Howard Shyr (石世豪) said, when asked to comment on the result which came after almost two hours of negotiations.
The three laws concerned are the Television and Radio Act (廣播電視法), Cable Television Act (有線廣播法) and Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法).
Some of the controversial articles include those involving government investment, political parties and the military, must-carry channels and the tier-pricing scheme for the cable television system, Shyr said.
Lawmakers decided to put aside these articles without further discussion during the negotiations, he said.
For these unchanged articles, Shyr said that the commission would follow the current regulations, which means that the government, political parties and the military are still banned from directly or indirectly investing in media outlets.
Regarding the must-carry channels, the caucuses decided to adopt the interpretation of Article 27 of the Cable Television Act in June 2012, which indicates that cable systems are only legally obliged to carry the main channel of each terrestrial television system.
Meanwhile, the different caucuses also agreed that the government should adopt a tier-pricing scheme for the cable television system, Shyr said, adding that the commission was asked to submit a comprehensive plan to enforce such a scheme to the legislature within six months.
Asked what the commission would propose in the tier-pricing scheme, Shyr said that the commission rules by consensus and would come to a decision after further discussions among the commissioners.
The amendment was proposed to handle the problems facing the media industry during the era of digital convergence, Shyr said.
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