Last night, 7 cable TV channels were forced to stop broadcasting as the goverment had refused to renew their licenses:
The government has decided to suspend seven cable TV channels, including one news station and a movie channel, beginning tomorrow, citing the irresponsibility of the electronic media. But the move is expected to ignite new political confrontation soon.
The background to this is that the Government Information Office (the GIO – the body responsible for regulating the media) has been reviewing the licenses for the majority of TV channels over the last few months. It released a preliminary report a few weeks ago which failed 21 of the 70 channels; after further review this number was whittled down to 7 failures – who were forced to close almost immediately.
I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t think the quality of TV in Taiwan is terrible, and so there was plenty of support in principle for something to be done (a survey done just before the review showed that 73% of people thought the current news channels had a negative impact on the country). Elton John famously called Taiwanese reporters “rude, vile pigs” within half an hour of landing in Taiwan, so he’d probably agree that more control is needed of the media.
The one news channel which has been closed, ETTV-S, could hardly claim to be a high quality news organisation. Recently, it’s claim to fame was as the channel which broadcast a fake news report by a PFP councillor on reuse of food from funerals (along with the suspicion that many other ‘news reports’ from that show were also faked). It is also the 2nd news channel owned by ETTV, which means that anything of any quality can easily be transferred to its sister channel. Given these fact, if any news channel was to be closed, ETTV-S was always going to be favourite.
After the closure of ETTV-S there are still 7 24-hour news channels left in Taiwan, so the problem is still one of too much quantity, too litle quality.
The other channels that have been axed have one thing in common: smut. Taiwanese TV has always had pretty puritanical standards for what can be shown (watching an episode of ‘Sex & the City’ in Taiwan will be several minutes quicker than watching the original), and it seems that 6 channels have failed to live up to the regulators views on decency.
Political motivation
Of course, several opposition legislators are crying foul and claiming that the government is shutting down dissenting voices; first prize for hyperbole goes to PFP Legislator Lee Yung-ping who said “If political force is to intervene again in how the media should work, we’ll be returning to the days of ‘white terror'” (a farcical comparison – especially given the way that her boss, James Soong, controlled the media with an iron grip at the tail-end of the white-terror days).
Practically speaking, the only evidence of any bias is the fact that the GIO is a government appointed body. In response to these claims the GIO is pointing out that only a quarter of the review committee were government representatives, and also trying to make the review process as transparent as possible:
The whole five-hour reviewing process as well as discussion and debates of the 12 panelists were recorded and can be made public to dispel the speculation that the GIO had made any intervention, he [GIO head Yao Wen-chih] explained.
However, in the current political climate, anything that could be construed as censorship is immediately pounced on by the opposition.
Scrap the GIO
One issue that has been raised by this is the role of the GIO: During the martial law years it was responsible for all the propaganda of the government, and suppression of any dissenting voices. It was only in the 90s that its grip was relaxed, and the current free-for-all in Taiwanese media resulted. There is general agreement that the powers of the GIO should be reduced (and even that it should be disbanded completely). However, as always the deadlock in the government in Taiwan means that this hasn’t happened … both the ruling DPP and the opposition KMT/PFP agree that a seperate body should be created to handle media regulation (like the FCC in the US), but they can’t agree on the details.
One final point: The question about whether these actions will improve the quality of Taiwanese TV was emphatically answered for me in the positive when I found out that most cable TV operators had replaced the banned channels with BBC World.
“Smut?” Long Shong Asian Movie channel broadcasting “smut?”
Hardly. In fact, I hold your summation suspect, given the fact that four of the channels did not broadcast smut, nor did they have a particular political slant. In the case of Long Shong there was no “smut,” no political content that the channel passed off beyond what hte films offered (and most of their films were not political in the slightest). This is baffling. If anything, Long Shong is one of the more restrained of the Asian movie channels. I suspect a bribe wasn’t paid, or someone didn’t donate to Chen Shui-bian’s campaign. “Most Cable TV operators” haven’t replaced any of the channels with BBC World. Perhaps in Taipei, but down here in the Taiwan that its government and the world forgets about/ignores – the channels remain blank.
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OK – I exaggerated about it being all about smut, but it was a significant factor in many of the channels axings. Although you can’t rule out corruption/bribery being an issue, I suspect that the main reason behind this is just crass politics: the government saw major dissatisfaction with the state of TV and so decided to do something about it. Pick one news channel, one movie channel and a few random other channels to be made an example of. Decisive action by the government to sort things out. Pity they made such a hash of it … a set of clear guidelines with fines, warnings, temporary suspension and then *eventual* removal of the license for serial offenders would have been much better than a sudden fall of the axe.
There does need to be proper regulation – it would be nice if a serious discussion of how to regulate TV properly came about after this. Unfortunately, it’s now a political hot potato, so we’re not going to see anything sensible for a while on this.
Oh, and the BBC World point was very tongue in cheek. I am genuinely pleased to have it though (if it stays on) 🙂
Cheers.
My Long Shong Asian Movie Channel Says:
“I suspect a bribe wasn’t paid, or someone didn’t donate to Chen Shui-bian’s campaign.”
Jesus, another “pan-blue” jackass….are you one of the ones still gathering in front of the KMT (that’s “Kill More Taiwanese) headquarters in Taipei (yes a small knot of knuckleheads are still there under the guise of the “People’s Corner”).
This blog entry is based on speculation. I haven’t seen the transcript of the exact reasons that the stations did not have their licenses renewed, and it sounds like the author and the repliers haven’t either. I doubt that they threw darts at a list or the stations didn’t pay off someone.
I am intrigued, however, on what the premier said a few days ago that media outlets have nothing to fear as long as they abide by the law. The implication being that the sinful seven had broken the law — what law(s)?
If anyone gets the minutes of the GIO steering committee on this, feel free to let us in on the details. (I’m too lazy to do it myself)
Police have been checking vehicles in a zone around the site of the discovery, where poultry movements are restricted.