The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday approved applications from 16 cable system operators to move Sanlih Entertainment Television’s (SET TV) financial news channel, iNews, from channel 88 or 89 to 48, right next to the cable news block (channels 49 to 58).
Yesterday’s approval, along with a previous approval granted to another cable operator, would allow iNews to reach about 25 percent of cable service subscribers across the nation, the commission said.
The commitments made by iNews during its interview with NCC commissioners would be the criteria by which the commission would evaluate the channel and review its license renewal, NCC Vice Chairman and spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
The channel was told that it should incorporate these commitments into its business plan, Wong added.
To ensure the independence of the newsroom, the commission told iNews to make news media ethics guidelines part of its contract with employees, he said.
The channel pledged to recruit at least 35 employees in the next three years, during which it would spend a minimum of NT$200 million (US$7.19 million) to recruit workers and produce new programs, he said.
The content of iNews should be different from that on SET News, although they belong to the same media group, the commission said.
Specifically, iNews should keep its promise that 80 percent of the content would be financial news, of which 40 percent would be international financial news, the commission said.
Moreover, 60 percent of its programs should have never been broadcast on other cable TV channels, it said.
General news should make up less than 10 percent of its content, the commission said, adding that its shared content with SET News must be less than 10 percent.
SET TV would add two financial experts to its ethics committee to review cases related to financial news, the commission said.
The network told NCC commissioners about its plans to produce new programs if its viewership increases to 3.5 million to 4 million, it added.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas