Da Ai TV has been given one more week to provide all information explaining how it came to a decision to cancel the television series Jiachang’s Heart (智子之心), the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The network was reported to have canceled the soap opera after airing only two episodes at the beginning of last month due to criticism from Chinese netizens, who said it romanticized the 1937-1945 Second Sino-Japanese War.
The network denied that it pulled the series because of pressure from China, saying it had done so to “maintain harmony.”
The commission first asked the network’s chief executives to explain at a weekly commissioners’ meeting on May 30 why it had canceled the series.
Da Ai executives told the meeting that it was canceled amid concern that certain images could trigger altercations between different ethnic groups, which goes against the network’s founding purpose to promote social harmony.
The network also said that it had activated emergency procedures to cancel the series, while conceding that the cancelation was major negligence on its part.
The commissioners then demanded to know the details of the “emergency procedures” undertaken by the network, ordering it to submit the minutes of meetings among network executives and complaints from viewers about the series that led to its final decision to cancel the series.
However, in a written response to the commission’s requests, Dai Ai denied being negligent in abruptly canceling the series.
The reversal prompted NCC commissioners to demand that network executives visit the commission to clarify its position.
Da Ai director-general Susan Yeh (葉樹姍) showed up yesterday, but neither clarified the change in its position or provided the information that the commission requested, NCC spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
Yeh avoided answering key questions and gave only trivial responses, Wong added.
Da Ai said it would provide the information that the commissioners requested after its ethics committee holds a meeting on Friday next week.
However, the commissioners said the two matters are unrelated and the network should submit the requested information as soon as possible, Wong said.
“We are not asking the network to resume the broadcast of the television series, but it must explain why it canceled the series and how it affected viewers,” he said.
Asked what the commission would do if Da Ai keeps stonewalling, Wong said that the commission would not stop investigating the case.
“I cannot say what we would do now because the commissioners have yet to deliver a ruling on the case, but we would persevere in our responsibility as the administrator in charge,” he said.
The commission has said that it expected a thorough explanation from the network as it took three years to plan, produce and release the series, but it only took one week for the network to decide to cancel the show.
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