Taiwan Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) has been given three months to hand back to the government two FM frequencies, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The BCC’s Formosa Network (寶島網) and i-Radio Network (音樂網) have been used to counter Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
Their frequencies are now to be used for two new national networks, one for Hakka speakers and one for the Aborigines, which will be run by the Hakka Affairs Council and the Indigenous People Cultural Foundation respectively, commission spokesperson Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
BCC will still be the largest radio broadcast in the nation, with one nationwide FM network and two AM networks to reach its listeners nationwide, Wong said.
When BCC chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), a former Chinese Nationalist Party and New Party politician and former president of UFO Radio, acquired the BCC in 2007, he promised to return the two frequencies to the government once it had reassigned them for other uses, Wong said.
That condition was met when the Executive Yuan on Aug. 16 said the frequencies would be used to build a national Hakka-language network and one dedicated to the nation’s Aborigines, he said.
BCC now has three months to adjust its program lineup, reshuffle the personnel who work for the Formosa and i-Radio networks and inform its listeners of the changes, he said.
The commission has already issued permits to the council and the foundation, which are expected to spend three to six months organizing their stations, Wong said.
The Executive Yuan has suggested that the council and the foundation share facilities with other state-run stations, including the Police Radio Station and the National Education Station.
Andy Hsieh (謝煥乾), director of the council’s Department of Legal Affairs, said Jaw was informed several times last year and this year that he needed to prepare for the return of the two frequencies.
Although the commission had approved the BCC’s license renewal application on June 30, it included a conditional clause reserving the right to cancel the licenses for the Formosa and i-Radio networks, Hsieh said.
The BCC on July 27 filed an appeal of the clause with the Executive Yuan, but the Executive Yuan’s appeal department is very likely to rule in favor of NCC, Hsieh said.
NCC Department of Broadcasting and Contents Director Huang Ching-yi (黃金益) said the commission has consulted experts who said that based on the UN Declarations on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples and the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law (原住民族基本法) and Hakka Basic Act (客家基本法), the government has not been allocating sufficient cultural resources for Hakka and Aborigines.
“Experts said that the government should be in sync with the other nations in its efforts to preserve the languages of minorities. The Hakkas have five distinct dialects and there are 16 Aboriginal communities in Taiwan,” Huang said. “The Aborigines, in particular, have only oral language and do not have written languages. Television networks dedicated to the broadcast of the Aboriginal languages are not enough when it comes to preservation of the languages. Radio stations could go further in preserving these languages, as evidenced by the radio stations in Australia and New Zealand.”
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