The board of the publicly funded Public Television Service (PTS) Foundation decided on Thursday to set up new guidelines and investigate a controversial last-minute decision to switch programming during the recently ended student-led protest against the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade pact.
The PTS board focused on incidents during the Sunflower movement, which lasted from March 18 to April 10.
The board included a decision to cancel a rebroadcast of a special on one of its channels, the foundation said in a statement released after the meeting.
On March 31, the station canceled a replay of a program on Sunflower leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) in favor of a concert by late singer Frankie Gao (高凌風), who passed away in February.
That followed a controversy on March 27, when the regular presenter of NGO View, Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容), was conspicuously replaced for an episode on the trade pact, reportedly because of her opposition to the agreement.
PTS chairman Shaw Yu-ming (邵玉銘) said in the statement that the incidents reflected poor management and sloppy decisionmaking at the channel.
Referring to the NGO View incident, he said the board supports existing guidelines for news programs and respects decisions made by each program’s producer, but will instruct management to draft a clearer guideline that meets international standards.
The board also decided to review the March 31 programming change and determine who was responsible for it, the statement said.
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