The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday asked the management of Da Ai TV to come to its offices in Taipei to answer questions, as it reviews the network’s application to renew its license.
The network, which is funded by the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, applied to renew its license as it expires on April 14, the commission said.
The commission said that it has convened an independent committee of experts in media and other fields to review the application.
After closely examining the network’s performance since it obtained its license in 2014, the committee has identified two main issues and needs the network’s management to explain them in detail, it said.
First, the network abruptly terminated the broadcast of its self-produced television series Jiachang’s Heart (智子之心) after airing two episodes in 2018 on May 10 and May 11, the commission said, adding that the move resulted in 48 consumer complaints.
Second, the network’s handling of the news concerning the foundation’s request to set up a logistics center and a factory on a 4.4 hectare plot in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) in 2015 represented a clear conflict of interest, the commission said.
NCC commissioners considered a recommendation from the committee and yesterday ruled that Da Ai TV must send its management to the commission to explain how the network plans to address the two issues, the commission said.
Jiachang’s Heart, which tells the story of the foundation volunteer Lin Chih-hui (林智惠), was reportedly canceled due to online criticism from Chinese, who said that it “romanticized” the 1937-1945 Second Sino-Japanese War.
Lin served as a military nurse for Japan in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China, during the war.
The NCC launched an administrative investigation into the matter after receiving complaints from viewers.
Da Ai TV executives initially conceded in a meeting with commissioners that the network was negligent for canceling the series without notifying the public in advance, saying that their decisionmaking process was rash.
They later reversed their position, saying that it canceled the TV series “for fear that certain imagery could trigger altercations between different ethnic groups, which goes against the network’s founding purpose to promote social harmony.”
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS