Eleven Sports Channel 1 has been warned for contravening broadcasting regulations requiring clear separation of TV programs and commercials after it used advertisers’ images too many times in sports broadcasts, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The channel broadcast CPBL games between the Wei Chuan Dragons and the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions on Sept. 24 and the Fubon Guardians and the Rakuten Monkeys on May 22 last year, NCC Vice Chairman and spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) told reporters at the commission’s weekly news briefing in Taipei.
During the four-hour game between the Guardians and the Monkeys, full-screen advertisements for Top Gun 2: Maverick were displayed 100 times, with each instance lasting two to three seconds, Wong said.
Photo: Yang Mien-chieh, Taipei Times
The trailer for the film was also aired during the halftime break, he said.
During the three-hour broadcast of the Dragons-Lions game, images for Uni-President Enterprise Corp’s King of Tea beverages were shown 100 times, he said.
An independent content review committee ruled that the channel contravened Article 30 of the Satellite Radio and Television Act (衛星廣播電視法), the commission said.
As the channel has not been punished in the past two years, the committee recommended it be given warnings for the two incidents, which NCC commissioners approved.
“The problem with the incidents was that advertisers’ images appeared too frequently while the games were being played, which blurred the line between programming and commercials,” Wong said.
In April, the NCC proposed an amendment to the Regulations for the Distinction Between Television Programs and Advertisements, Product Placement Marketing and Sponsorships (電視節目廣告區隔與置入性行銷及贊助管理辦法) that would allow sports and arts channels to cover half the screen or the full screen with sponsors’ names, provided that they are shown without audio and for no more than two seconds. The restriction on display duration does not apply to sponsors on scorecards.
The advertising must not disrupt the sports or ceremonies, or compromise audience interests, or the completeness and independence of the content, the proposed amendment says.
The proposal would help sports and arts channels secure more sponsors, as they often pay high royalties to obtain broadcasting rights, the commission said.
“We have received public feedback about the proposal and would soon review the amendment at a commissioners’ meeting,” Wong said.
However, until the amendment is approved by commissioners, channel operators must still ensure that programs and commercials are clearly separated, he said.
In other news, ERA News channel was fined NT$200,000 for falsely reporting in its evening news at 6pm on Aug. 24 last year that the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty was launching a campaign to get a suspect involved in the killing of a policeman in Tainan last year off death row, the commission said.
Separately, TVBS-N and TVBS Entertainment were each fined NT$600,000 for promoting products in their programs, it said.
The fines were set mainly based on the record of punishment that each channel has accumulated over the past two years, the commission said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its