With the Chinese-language newspapers Apple Daily and China Times poised to branch out into the field of television, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday that it would strive to prevent media enterprises from monopolizing news sources.
Jimmy Lai (黎智英), founder of Next Media, which owns the Apple Daily, said in a recent interview in the Wall Street Journal Asia that he was planning to spend US$200 million to launch two cable news channels. Last year, Want Want China Holdings Ltd chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) bought the China Times Group, which includes the China Times and Commercial Times dailies and the China Times Weekly magazine, as well as CTI TV and China Television (中視).
NCC commissioner Chung Chi-huey (鍾啟惠) said the media watchdog had taken note of the latest changes in media ownership and was particularly concerned about how the integration of print and television media might affect public opinion.
Chung said that while the NCC still had to discuss the issue and had not yet reviewed any specific case, the commission plans to scrutinize media ownership and its impact on society to help it deal with cases that might arise this year.
She said that although the US Federal Communications Commission lifted the nation’s ban on media integration 12 years ago, it has since ruled on some large cases, including the merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2000.
Some level of regulation was necessary, Chung said.
“How the technology of digital convergence is used should be examined in the social and historical contexts of the nation,” she said at a press conference yesterday on the amendment of the Satellite Radio and Television Act (衛星廣播電視法).
Commissioner Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) said that while the NCC had considered issues related to the integration of media ownership when it was working on amendments to the Satellite Radio and Television Act, it was such an involved issue that the commission had been unable to include the relevant regulations in the current amendment.
Weng said media ownership regulations may be added in a future second amendment to the Satellite Radio and Television Act, and would be included in the Broadcasting and Television Act (廣播電視法), which is in the process of being amended.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
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