Satellite TV broadcasts of locally produced movies and television dramas dropped significantly last year as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted productions and affected funding, the National Communications Commission said on Wednesday.
The commission presented the results of its annual survey of terrestrial and satellite television channels, which was conducted to fulfill the requirements of the Regulations on Terrestrial Television Business Broadcasting Domestically-Produced Programs (無線電視事業播送本國自製節目管理辦法) and the Regulations on Satellite Broadcasting Program Supplier Broadcasting Domestically-Produced Programs (衛星頻道節目供應事業播送本國節目管理辦法).
The regulations mandate that local productions should comprise at least 50 percent of TV dramas broadcast during prime-time hours on terrestrial TV channels, and at least 40 percent of “new broadcasts,” referring to a show or program that is airing for the first time on any channel.
The “new broadcast” requirement also applies to satellite channels.
The regulations for satellite channels focus on airtime for locally produced dramas, movies, variety shows and children’s programs. From 5pm to 7pm, a slot allocated for children’s programs, locally produced shows must account for at least 25 percent of the total, with new broadcasts accounting for at least 40 percent.
The same requirement applies to dramas, movies, documentaries and variety shows airing from 8pm to 11pm.
For movie channels, 25 percent of movies and documentaries that air from 9pm to 11pm should be made in Taiwan, with new broadcasts making up at least 20 percent.
The survey showed that all satellite TV channels met the required airtime for locally produced programs, the commission said.
On terrestrial channels, new movie or TV drama broadcasts rose slightly last year.
On satellite channels, while the airtime and new broadcasts of Taiwanese variety shows rose 10.4 percent and 8.5 percent respectively last year, the airtime of locally produced TV dramas decreased from 8,528 hours in 2019 to 7,719 hours last year.
New broadcasts of locally made TV dramas fell from 3,915 hours in 2019 to 3,495 hours last year.
While the airtime of Taiwan-made movies increased from 2,827 hours in 2019 to 3,284 hours last year, the airtime of new broadcasts declined from 888 hours in 2019 to 597 hours last year.
“In addition to television channels changing their programming plans, the COVID-19 pandemic affected funding available for TV programs and films, and delayed production schedules,” the commission said. “We are glad that these channels’ management had backup programs to meet the requirements under the situation.”
As the pandemic is expected to continue affecting programming this year, the commission said it would be more flexible when reviewing TV channels’ performance.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching