The Taiwan agents of the popular cable TV channel HBO announced a plan yesterday to avoid further uproar among TV viewers, while uneasy negotiations continued between cable TV operators and channel agents for license renewals.
Representatives from TV Time Entertainment Networks, Inc (
HBO's current license expires on Jan. 8.
Tu Teh-yen (
The company may also consider running commercials on the HBO channel to cut prices and make negotiations easier, said Wu Chih-ching (
Meanwhile, Chao made an appeal to the public to give him some more time to work out solutions.
Chao, a former CEO of two local cable TV stations, has come under criticism for his perceived inability to effectively handle the dispute, seen as due largely to his long-term involvement in the electronic media business before his appointment as GIO chief a month ago.
A report in the chinese-language press said yesterday that Chao, former CEO of Global TV (
Meanwhile, local governments yesterday continued to talk tough to cable TV operators that shifted or stopped broadcasting certain channels.
Kaohsiung City Government's Department of Information issued an ultimatum yesterday to local cable TV firm Tahsin (大信) to resume broadcasting or face a NT$500,000 fine. In Taipei County, the county government slapped NT$100,000 fines on two cable TV operators in Hsintien and Sanchung cities.
Meanwhile, officials from the Fair Trade Commission said they had arrived at an initial conclusion that joint sales operations by some cable TV firms in central and southern Taiwan violate the Fair Trade Law.
About 80 percent of Taiwan's cable TV market is controlled by two conglomerates, Eastern Multimedia and United Communications. The annual price wars between the two groups and independent channel agents, and the resulting channel shifts and suspensions, have now become a yearly ritual across Taiwan.
Since the early 1990s, the number of cable companies nationwide has shrunk from 600 to the current level of about 70.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
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