The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday asked Soochow University adjunct assistant law professor Yeh Ching-yuan (葉慶元) to apologize for accusing the commission of colluding with the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee in a bid to destroy the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC).
In a letter to the editor published by the Chinese-language China Times, Yeh said that the NCC has been working closely with the committee.
The NCC has threatened to revoke the BCC’s operating license and a committee member conducted extensive investigations of the BCC’s assets, which has greatly tarnished the NCC’s reputation as an independent agency, Yeh said.
Although Yeh had sent the letter in his capacity as an academic, the commission said it found that he provides legal counsel to the BCC in its administrative appeals and lawsuits against the NCC — which he did not disclose in his article.
“Yeh in his article made inappropriate connections between different matters and used the BCC’s case to confuse people. These actions have damaged the commission’s credibility. He should apologize for making the statement,” the NCC said.
It said that the frequencies used by the BCC’s Formosa Network and i-Radio Network have been used to counter Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
After the nation ended the practice in 2004, the Executive Yuan moved to take back the radio frequency, the commission said.
“When the current management acquired BCC from the China Times Group in 2007, it promised to return the radio frequency to the government without any condition following the government’s reassignment of the frequency to a third party. The move to take back the frequency was made before the Ill-gotten Party Asset Committee was established, and it remained unchanged, despite changes in government,” the commission said, adding that taking back the frequency is different from revoking the radio company’s operating license.
The commission said it has the authority to investigate if any media outlet has contravened regulations barring political parties, the government and military from investing in media companies or getting involved in their operations.
The matter has nothing to do with the jurisdiction of the assets committee, it said.
The NCC in July said it was considering reopening an investigation into the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) sale of the BCC in 2006 due to a potentially illegal hidden clause in the contract signed by the party and BCC chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康).
The clause stipulates that if the buyer pays less than 90 percent of the selling price, KMT-controlled Hua Hsia Investment Holding Co (華夏投資公司), with which the BCC’s shares originally resided, would have the right to appoint directors, supervisors and financial officers to the BCC.
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