Cite Media Holding Group’s (城邦媒體集團) application to establish a knowledge and lifestyle channel was approved yesterday by the National Communications Commission (NCC), which said the channel must strictly adhere to the nation’s media regulations.
The group is an affiliate of TOM Group, which is owned by Hong Kong business tycoon Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠). The approval will allow the billionaire to venture into Taiwan’s television network.
According to the NCC, the satellite television channel will broadcast humanities and lifestyle programs. It also plans to use Chunghwa Telecom’s multimedia-on-demand (MOD) system.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
NCC spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said the channel plans to task Hong Kong-based China Entertainment Television Broadcast (CETV) with producing programs, although the two will also jointly produce shows.
TOM Group’s CETV was recently given permission to air its programs in China’s Guangdong Province.
“The channel must follow Taiwan’s Satellite Television Act (衛星廣播電視法) and other relevant regulations when producing programs, particularly if its programming is to be produced by Hong Kong or China-based firms,” Chen said.
The channel was asked to formulate its own rules and self-regulate its own news reports about Cite Media Group, the NCC said, adding that it set this requirement because the group has a publishing firm and needs to maintain a clear separation between news and the advertisement of its products.
These two requirements will be used as standards in the NCC’s biennial evaluation of the channel, as well as its review of the channel’s license renewal application, Chen said.
Apart from Cite Media, Disney Group’s Disney Junior channel also secured NCC approval, provided that it carefully reviews the content of programs for children and youths imported from overseas.
However, the commission rejected EYE TV network’s (萬達超媒體) application to set up a knowledge and lifestyle channel on the grounds that the programs listed in its application indicated the channel’s rerun rate would reach 96.35 percent.
“The network’s two other channels — a drama and a travel channel — also have program rerun rates of about 80 percent,” Chen said. “This shows us that the network does not have an adequate number of television programs to sustain the operation of another channel.”
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS