Lawmakers on Friday agreed to commission a TV station to broadcast legislative proceedings, a move aimed at improving legislative transparency that is expected to be carried out in the coming months, Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said.
The legislative caucuses of the Democratic Progressive Party, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the New Power Party and the People First Party met on Friday and agreed to look for a TV station willing to broadcast legislative proceedings for free, the DPP’s Su said on Friday.
After the TV station is chosen, the free service would hold a trial run during the current legislative session that started last month, Su said.
The trial run would aim to identify problems that might arise during broadcasts of legislative proceedings to ensure smooth broadcasts when the service is formally launched during the next legislative session, which is to begin in September, Su told reporters.
According to the consensus reached among the four parties, no advertisements, interviews or commentary would be allowed during the broadcasts of legislative floor proceedings and committee hearings.
Su estimated that outsourcing the service would save the legislature NT$20 million to NT$30 million (US$604,211 to US$906,317) per year, but said that the amount paid to the vendor would depend on how much it loses during the free trial run.
Meanwhile, the legislature is working to expand bandwidth for its live online Webcasts of floor proceedings and committee meetings to allow 1,000 simultaneous viewers, Su said.
Live Webcasts of legislative proceedings were launched in 2009 to improve legislative transparency.
There have been complaints that the live Webcast crashes whenever more than 200 people are watching.
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