Momo Kids TV was fined NT$600,000 (US$20,026) yesterday for airing cartoons containing content deemed inappropriate for children.
Last year, the National Communications Commission (NCC) received dozens of complaints from parents when the children’s channel broadcast an episode of the Japanese cartoon School Rumble (校園迷糊大王) depicting high-school students watching a pornographic movie together. They also complained that the episode contained a scene of jiggling breasts and showed actors moaning in pornographic movies.
The commission had decided to forward the recorded material from the controversial episode to an independent content review committee, formed by experts not -affiliated with the commission.
NCC communication content department director Jason Ho (何吉森) said 18 experts attending the review meeting earlier this month unanimously agreed that the channel had committed a very serious violation. They ruled it had infringed Item 2, Article 17 of the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法), in which domestic and foreign satellite broadcasting businesses are banned from airing content that would “impair the physical or mental health of children or juveniles.”
NCC spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said the committee members disapproved of the channel’s content, adding that the channel’s license could be revoked if it failed to improve.
“Committee members said that the channel’s programs target -preschoolers and school children, but the cartoon violated the general rating requirement,” the NCC said in a statement.
Apart from Momo, eight other channels and two other telecoms carriers were fined by the NCC ahead of the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday. The fines, including that for Momo, totaled NT$5.4 million.
SET TV News, CTi TV News and ETTV News were fined NT$300,000, NT$800,000 and NT$600,000 respectively for failing to distinguish between a television program and an advertisement, violating Article 19 of the Satellite Broadcasting Act. The three news channels were found to have interviewed salespeople as well as the chairman of a specific construction firm or feature projects launched by the firm.
SET and ETTV also aired -commercials for the construction firm immediately after they ran the news story.
“Each channel was fined differently based on the severity of the violations in the cases discussed and past records of violation,” Ho said.
SET TV News was also penalized NT$200,000 for its coverage of a story on how a nine-year-old girl posted an article on a Web site seeking cash for sex.
While the anchorperson reported the news, the production team ran an animated image of a woman performing oral sex in the background.
Star Movies, Channel V and three other channels on Chunghwa Telecom’s multimedia-on-demand (MOD) system were fined for airing content containing excessive violence or sexual abuse.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and