Mirror Media’s two-year drive to secure a broadcasting license and a coveted spot in the cable news block ended last month, but critics say its arduous path revealed issues in the National Communications Commission’s (NCC) review process.
Unlike other networks in the channel 49 to channel 58 cable news block, Mirror News would not air political talk shows during prime-time viewing hours, its management told the NCC. Instead, it said it would use the coveted time slots to broadcast self-produced investigative features.
The channel’s management also promised to recruit retired National Chengchi University journalism professor Weng Shieu-chi (翁秀琪) as a full-time ombudsman to control quality, making it the first news channel in Taiwan to do so.
Photo: Yang Mien-chieh, Taipei Times
Mirror News would broadcast international news as well as reports focused on children and teenagers, it said, adding that it is committed to airing two hours of daily news in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese).
Mirror Media chairman Pei Wei (裴偉) also resigned as the chairman of the news channel, which many interpreted as a strategic move to convince the NCC that the content on the network would be nothing like the tabloid journalism in Mirror Media magazine.
Despite the seemingly lofty pledges, it took the channel more than two years to obtain the license, which also came with 26 conditions that the channel must meet in the next six years.
The ruling was not unanimously supported by all seven commissioners.
Lin Lih-yun (林麗雲) and Wang Wei-ching (王維菁), the only two commissioners with backgrounds in journalism and mass communication, jointly wrote a letter of dissent, saying that Mirror News would neither “contribute to the diversity of the news media” nor “have positive effects on the television news industry.”
“The channel’s lack of target audience and a clear positioning in the market would make it difficult to differentiate itself from existing news channels,” they said.
In the commission’s weekly news conference on Jan. 19, NCC Vice Chairman and spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said that the commission’s ruling on the case would have no bearing on similar cases.
To industry experts, the commission sent an unequivocal message: In the next two years, anyone planning to establish a cable news channel should be prepared for a long journey, and must be ready to accept whatever conditions the commissioners hand down.
If any of the conditions are not met, the commissioners could easily reject a license renewal application, as they did with CTi News in 2020, they said.
The NCC has not always kept such a tight rein over broadcast media. Since its establishment in 2006, the commission has only rejected two TV channels’ license renewal applications.
However, satellite channels have been on their toes since the current slate of commissioners took office in 2020.
Previously, a mid-term evaluation of a satellite channel, which is conducted in the third year of a six-year broadcasting license period, only needed to be reviewed by a task force headed by an NCC commissioner. Such cases now have to be deliberated and approved at the commissioners’ weekly meeting.
As of the end of last month, the NCC has yet to give a passing grade in a mid-term evaluation of seven cable news channels and one terrestrial channel, even though most of them are scheduled to file license renewal applications in July or August next year.
The commission has also issued significantly delayed rulings on cases involving TV channels.
Fifteen cable systems nationwide in February last year filed applications to have TTV News air on channel 52, which was previously occupied by CTi News. In March last year, Taiwan Optical Platform, a multiple-system operator in central Taiwan, applied to establish a national news channel. Neither application has yet secured approval from the commission.
The only case the NCC swiftly reviewed last year was for Homeplus Digital cable systems to broadcast CTS News and Info on channel 52, which the commission approved within two months.
Some experts said that the NCC’s enforcement of stricter administrative measures in managing cable news channels might have been motivated by public frustration over the perceived “chaos” in the industry.
For years, cable news channels have been criticized for their dearth of international news coverage, while the local coverage mostly features video recorded by surveillance or dashboard cameras or footage previously uploaded to YouTube.
Critics say the NCC should focus on more pressing issues facing cable television rather than spending so much time regulating cable channels.
The number of “cord cutters” — people canceling their cable subscriptions for Netflix, Disney+ and other over-the-top media services — is on the rise.
Taiwan’s cable service subscribers have fallen from about 5.269 million in 2017 to about 4.768 million as of the third quarter of last year, NCC data showed.
From 2020 to last year, Fox Sports, Disney Channel and Waku Waku Japan have ceased operating in Taiwan.
Media experts attributed their departures to unfair treatment of overseas channels, which receive disproportionately low content authorization fees and are forced to take spots at the back of channel lineups.
The commission has been reluctant to shake up the cable channel lineup, despite widespread criticism that the current configuration has been unchanged for decades.
The NCC has also yet to find an effective solution to resolve disputes over fair distribution of profit between channel and cable system operators, nor has it addressed media regulations that ban funding for broadcast media from the government, political parties and the military.
Such regulations punish the media for receiving an investment, but do not hold investors accountable.
National Taiwan University of Arts radio and television professor Weber Lai (賴祥蔚) said that the NCC needs a clear policy on the management of cable news channels: Whether it will cap the number of news channels on the air and encourage healthy competition, or guarantee rights of existing news channels while setting a high bar for newcomers to enter the market.
“What we have seen from the commission’s review of Mirror News is that the commission apparently lacks transparency and consistent standards to review such cases,” he said. “This would leads to two problems. First, newcomers would have not any set rules to follow. Second, if certain NCC commissioners, out of political motivations, intend to punish certain media outlets for being disobedient or reward those who are, the current system would make it easier for them to do so.”
Former NCC commissioner Jason Ho (何吉森) said he agreed with the commission’s decision to impose conditions when approving Mirror Media’s application.
“Taiwan already has six 24-hour news channels. In such a saturated market, where channels offer similar content, the commission cannot simply let any new channel enter without setting conditions,” he said.
Nevertheless, the commissioners have not done enough to ensure diversity of broadcast news and showed little respect for self-disciplinary mechanisms set up by news channels, he said.
“What I have observed in the past few years is that the commission’s rulings are often guided by political considerations, and it has stipulated measures that belittle professionalism and restrict freedom of the media,” he said.
Ho said that the cable channel lineup should be changed, although there should be sunset clauses for existing channels.
“They [channels 1 to 100] should be informed that they could be removed from their spots under some conditions. Meanwhile, the commission should start planning for channel blocks from 100 to 200, and 200 to 300 and so on,” he said.
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