The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday threatened to boycott a review of the National Communications Commission’s (NCC) budget for next year if the media regulator approves an application to move TVBS News out of the cable news block.
The NCC last weekend said that it had received applications from Dafong Cable and Taiwan Broadcast Communications — two local multiple system operators — to move TVBS News from channel 55 to channels 149 and 158 respectively.
Channel 55 — part of the channel 49 to 58 cable news block — would air Mirror News, which secured a broadcasting license in January.
Photo: Liu Hsin-te, Taipei Times
Dafong Cable and Taiwan Broadcast Communications in 2020 applied to merge, a plan that the NCC has not yet approved.
The two cable operators’ applications to move TVBS News surprised industry observers, given the station’s popularity.
KMT caucus whip Tseng Ming-chung (曾銘宗) said that Taiwanese news media have become a collective sounding board for the pan-green camp after the NCC rejected a license renewal application of CTiTV News, which previously aired on channel 52.
“The NCC should protect consumers amid disputes between channels and cable system operators per laws and customary practices,” Tseng said.
After the new legislative session begins on Friday, the KMT would ask the NCC to give a special briefing to lawmakers regarding the situation before it reviews its budget for next year, the party said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Deputy Secretary-General Huang Shih-chieh (黃世杰) said that a dispute between TVBS and two cable system operators resulted from a failure to reach a business agreement, which prompted cable system operators to apply to change their channel lineups.
“This is a business dispute and we should leave it to the NCC to decide whether cable operators have reasonable justifications for their plans,” Huang said.
“We do not have any fixed position on how the dispute should be settled,” he said.
“We urge the KMT and other political parties to do the same and not attempt to interfere in the review process,” he added.
Representatives of TVBS, Dafong Cable and Taiwan Broadcast Communications met yesterday morning at the NCC’s headquarters for an arbitration meeting, with NCC Commissioner Lin Lih-yun (林麗雲) presiding.
The NCC on Monday said that the arbitration was to settle a dispute over content authorization fees, which cable systems pay to channel operators to air their content.
Article 55 of the Cable Radio and Television Act (有線廣播電視法) authorizes the commission to arbitrate disputes over broadcasting terms or between cable system operators.
Dafong Cable said in a statement that the decision to move TVBS News to channel 149 was made after taking into account various factors.
“We also want to highlight unreasonable practices of some agents of channel operators, who abused their advantage of having a large number of subscribers by arbitrarily raising their content authorization fees,” the company said.
“We have applied to move TVBS to channel 149, not take it off the air,” the company said. “TVBS’ new spot is in our second cable news block. The change was made in compliance with the NCC’s proposed policy of numbering channels with three-digit numbers and dividing channels into blocks based on their content. What we plan to do is legal.”
It proposed to have Mirror News on channel 55 to ensure that people can access diverse news content, Dafong Cable said, adding that the lineup change was for business considerations, not political motivations.
The company also denied that TVBS was targeted in the dispute.
“We have been negotiating the terms of content authorization with Global Digital Media, TVBS’ agent and an affiliate of Homeplus Digital,” it said. “We hope to communicate with the channel directly without meddling from the agent.”
Taiwan Broadcast Communications on Monday said in a statement that it decided to move TVBS to channel 158 because the way Global Digital Media calculated the content authorization fee was unreasonable.
“Cable TV subscribers can now watch simulcasts of TVBS News for free on YouTube, which could hurt our business. Instead of addressing our concerns, the agent tried to stall the negotiations and even wanted to increase the fee,” the statement said.
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