Thirteen satellite television channels were yesterday fined NT$200,000 each for failing to reach the percentages required for Taiwan-produced programming and for reruns during prime-time hours, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said.
The amendment to the Regulations on Satellite Broadcasting Program Supplier Broadcasting Domestically Produced Program (衛星頻道節目供應事業播送本國節目管理辦法), which was passed at the end of last year, took effect in January.
The amendment targets TV series and variety shows aired between 8pm and 10pm, movies broadcast between 9pm and 11pm and children’s programming broadcast between 5pm and 7pm.
During these time slots, locally produced programs must account for no less than a quarter of the content. Reruns may only account for 60 percent of programming, while movie channels’ content can only run old programs 80 percent of the time.
The commission between January and June evaluated programs aired on 134 cable and multimedia-on-demand satellite channels, NCC spokesperson Weng Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said, adding that it found that Eastern Super TV (東森超視) and 12 other channels had failed to meet the criteria.
San Da Cable TV Channel (三大一台) and documentary film station CNEX Channel (視納華仁) were given warnings.
The commission has tried to be lenient in issuing penalties to channels that fail to meet the regulations, as they only took effect this year, Weng said.
“We have considered the severity of each case and if the channel has taken actions to address the situation. We have also considered that it could take a year to plan the production of new series,” he said, adding that the commission would conduct a comprehensive evaluation after the regulations have been enforced for one year.
In related news, Weng said that the commission has launched an investigation into whether Sanlih TV News produced a fake story when it reported that former Democratic Progressive Party secretary-general Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) frequented a private club in Taipei.
The station allegedly interviewed one of its own reporters as a source and reprimanded a news anchor for refusing to report the story.
The station admitted violating the journalistic code of ethics in an interview with the NCC on Tuesday, Weng said, adding that the commission has requested that the station’s own ethic committee first deliberate the case.
“The station must send a report to the NCC on the committee’s conclusion, which will then be reviewed by the commissioners,” he said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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