Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te (李永得) yesterday denied rumors that the government has identified candidates to replace Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS) chairwoman Tchen Yu-chiou (陳郁秀) following her resignation last week over significant errors committed by two television stations operated by the publicly funded service.
Lee, who oversees TBS, was asked to attend a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee to answer questions from lawmakers regarding mistakes committed by the Public Television Service (PTS) and Chinese Television System (CTS), along with Tchen and CTS acting general manager Chen Ya-ling (陳雅琳).
National Communications Commission Chairman Chen Yaw-shyang (陳耀祥), who oversees the CTS, also attended the meeting at the committee’s request.
The PTS last month was found to have lost about 80,000 TV news items from its archives due to a contractor’s oversight, while the CTS erroneously ran news tickers announcing a Chinese invasion off the coast of New Taipei City during its morning news program on Wednesday.
The CTS midday news program on Sunday misidentified Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) as president.
In her resignation letter, Tchen said that she took administrative responsibility for the recent incidents at TBS, but she added that the mishaps were results of “old facilities,” an “archaic personnel structure” and the “old-fashioned mentality of certain workers.”
Lee was asked by reporters on the sidelines of the meeting about rumors that the ministry is prepared to recruit General Association of Chinese Culture deputy chairman Antonio Chiang (江春男) or former Apple Daily editor-in-chief Eric Chen (陳裕鑫) to head TBS.
The rumors are unfounded speculation and not true, Lee said.
The chairman of the TBS board should be elected from among its board members, and Chiang is not on the board, he said.
Lee told lawmakers that the ministry would next month begin procedures to nominate new members and supervisors to TBS to address the problems facing the public television system.
Chen Yaw-shyang, who has been outspoken about his support for the public television system, said that the incidents exposed internal quality control problems at the CTS.
“We are not responsible for the CTS’ deeds because we are not the network’s operator,” he said.
He defended the commission’s decision to allow the CTS News and Information channel to air on channel 52 in the new cable news block — channels 49 to 58 — saying that there should be an opportunity for publicly funded channels and commercial channels to coexist.
The CTS’ management would be reprimanded if it is determined that it has contravened the Radio and Television Act (廣播電視法), he said.
“Judging from the investigation that we have conducted so far, the error was not so serious that it would cause the network to lose its broadcasting license,” he added.
Tschen and Chen Ya-ling told lawmakers that they had tendered their resignations.
However, Chen Ya-ling said that she would not leave until last week’s incident has been administratively handled.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wan Mei-ling (萬美玲) said that the network is prone to errors because Chen Ya-ling assumes multiple positions, including CTS acting general manager, network news director, news producer and anchor.
She has not done any of the jobs well, Wan said.
Chen Ya-ling said in response that those were the terms of the contract she accepted when she agreed to work at the CTS.
Local media had reported that the network accepted NT$12 million (US$408,580) from the Overseas Community Affairs Council to produce a special project for broadcast, and Chen Ya-ling was accused of misappropriating the budget to conduct exclusive news coverage for the networks in France and the US.
“We did the project for the council, but during the trip we encountered the New York subway shooting, the French election, and the war between Ukraine and Russia,” she said. “As a news person, I could not possibly ignore these events.”
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