The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday fined a cable television system in central Taiwan NT$1.6 million (US$54,043) because members of a politically prominent Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) family were shareholders, contravening regulations banning investment in media outlets by the government, public officials, political parties and the military.
The commission said that it launched an investigation after receiving reports about the alleged breaches in January.
The investigation found that KMT Legislator Hsieh Yi-fong’s (謝衣鳳) father, Hsieh Hhsin-lung (謝新隆), and sister, Hsieh Pei-ying (謝佩穎), held a 25.89 percent stake in Changhua County’s SD TV (三大有線電視) through a legal entity from Jan. 25, 2010, to April 7 of this year.
Photo: Yang Mien-chieh, Taipei Times
While Hsieh Yi-fong was only elected in January this year, her mother, Cheng Ru-feng (鄭汝芬), served as a KMT legislator from 2008 to 2016, while her brother, Hsieh Tien-lin (謝典霖), has been Changhua County Council speaker since 2009, the commission said.
Article 10 of the Cable Radio and Television Act (有線廣播電視法) not only bans political party workers, political appointees and elected officials from investing in cable systems, it limits the shareholdings in a cable system by their spouses, relatives by blood within the second degree of relationship and lineal relatives by marriage to no more than 1 percent of the issued shares.
“Mr Hsieh Hsin-lung and Ms Hsieh Pei-yin have been SD TV board members since Jan. 26, 2005. As the chairman of the board, Mr Hsieh Hsin-lung should be completely familiar with the shareholding restrictions in the Cable Radio and Television Act, and been able to prevent himself and his daughter from contravening the regulations. Instead, he chose to own the shares illegally for more than a decade, as did his daughter,” the commission said.
Hsieh Hsin-lung and Hsieh Pei-yin had been given a chance to explain their actions, it said.
As both had reduced their indirect shareholding in SD TV to 0.63 percent by April 8, the NCC ruled that the cable system be fined just NT$1.6 million for receiving invested funds from people having familial relationships with politicians.
In related news, the commission said that it would allow Eastern Broadcasting Co to keep its promise to increase program production funds by NT$900 million over a six-year period, a promise that it made to secure the NCC’s approval of an ownership change in 2018.
The commission found that the network had only increase the program production fund by NT$15 million since then, but spokesperson Hsiao Chi-hung (蕭祈宏) said that the network has kept its promise to spend NT$42 million per year to produce 4K-resolution programs.
“The condition that the commission had agreed upon was that the network should increase its program funds by NT$900 million by Dec. 31, 2023, which does not include NT$42 million that it committed to spend annually to produce 4K-resolution programs,” NCC specialist Chen Shu-ming (陳書銘) said.
Should the network fail to keep its promise, the commission can abolish the entire or part of its ruling on the case, Chen said.
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