Media Licensing in Taiwan

ESWN, always a cornucopia of fascinating information, logs a couple of articles on TV news and licensing in Taiwan.

In Apple Daily, now comes the interim progress report from the Government Information Office about the current round of license renewal. Of the eight full-time cable/satellite news channels, seven were up for license renewal. When successfully renewed, the channel can operate for another six years.

When a cable/satellite news channel applies for a license renewal, it is evaluated by the Government Information Office Evaluation Committee. This committee is formed by 13 representatives who are professional involved in the communications, corporate management, engineering and finance sectors. Each channel is graded with a passing threshold of 70 out of 100 points.

At the interim stage, two of the seven news channels (FTV (民視) and Unique (非凡)) have passed, while Era (年代), SETN (年代), TVBS-N, ETTV News (東森) and ETTV-S (東森 S) have failed, all with scores in the 60's.

UPDATE: (July 18) The pro-KMT paper also slammed the decision.

It is hardly a surprise to anyone in this country to discover that a network long affiliated with the ruling party and its ideology passed the committee's muster, along with a finance channel which recently hosted President Chen Shui-bian for a one-on-one interview special.

The GIO can come up with all the reasons in the world to explain why the committee recommended against renewing the licenses of the 21 networks and channels, but the entire operation reeks of political persecution and revenge-taking by the Democratic Progressive Party and there is little the GIO can do to explain this.

At election time, the DPP is always keen to remind the people of Taiwan about the tyranny that took place under the rule of the Kuomintang during the martial law era, a time when the local news media was strictly controlled and practiced extensive self-censorship.

That's why it is highly ironic that now the DPP is itself in power, it is resorting to the same oppressive and childish methods to silence its critics and anyone else the government doesn't like.

Needless to say the paper offered no evidence for its charges, although it is certainly suggestive that a pro-DPP station passed muster.

UPDATE: (Aug 9) After international complaints, rival groups of academics from the pro-KMT and pro-DPP groups weighed in on opposite sides. The Taipei Times covered the pro-DPP group:

"Actually, Taiwan's mass media has never really changed in nature even though martial law was lifted 17 years ago. Much of the media is still manufacturing news and stories with no sources at all," Lin said.

He said that the situation had actually become worse from increased commercial pressure.

"I believe that few people in Taiwan would disagree that the current news channels have become one of the major sources of social problems," Lin said.

There was also a great letter to the editor lambasting one of the banned channels, in response to a previous letter from a foreigner who worked at one of them:

I read Jacques van Wersch's letter ("Stay tuned for TV changes," Aug. 4, page 8) with some bemusement, especially when he casts the revocation of ETTV-S's license as a "media freedom issue" and that "taking to the streets" would be justified. Please, spare us your righteous indignation. ETTV-S is the same station where one of its flagship programs was Taipei City Councillor Mike Wang's (王育誠) tabloid drivel, recently forced off the air because of its fabrication of news.

[Taiwan]