Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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English
Photo Credit: Solomon203/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
THE NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (NCC) has come to the decision that PTS and other networks can continue to broadcast, in spite of the NCC not currently having a quorum to make decisions on whether to renew broadcast licenses.
The broadcast licenses of not only PTS, Taiwan’s public broadcaster, but a total of 37 television and radio stations, stood to be affected by the current lack of quorum, in that their broadcast licenses were in need of renewal. This included ICRT, Taiwan’s oldest English-language radio station, as well as four terrestrial television stations in addition to PTS, this being China Television, Chinese Television System, and Taiwan Television. TaiwanPlus, as part of PTS, would have been impacted, as would satellite television stations MTV Live and Nick Jr. Among radio stations, Fu-Hsin Broadcasting Station International, National Education Radio, Police Broadcasting Service, Taipei Broadcasting Station, and Kaohsiung Broadcasting Station, too, among others, would be impacted.
The NCC did not have the legal mandate to issue temporary licenses to the stations for them to continue operating. However, with the new solution, cable operators as well as Chunghwa Telecom’s multimedia-on-demand services have been told to maintain their line-up. It is also to be noted that the terrestrial television channels are currently handled by the Ministry of Digital Affairs.
The reason why the NCC is frozen is because of the KMT blocking nominees made by the Lai administration, to ensure that the NCC does not have enough quorum in order to make decisions. This is, in effect, the same tactic that the KMT has used regarding the Constitutional Court, in that the KMT pushed for legal changes requiring a minimum quora of justices for rulings to be made by the Constitutional Court, then sought to block any nominees made by the Lai administration after seven justices retired last October with the end of their terms.
Normally, the NCC has seven members. But legal changes pushed for by the KMT last year mandated that the NCC must have a minimum of four members in order to have a quorum for decisions. Changes to limit the NCC chair to a maximum of two terms, with each term being four years, then resulted in that acting chair Wong Po-tsung–whom the KMT also alleged was not fit to serve–could not take up a seat on the NCC. With less than four members, the NCC has been unable to make rulings since.
The National Communications Commission. Photo credit: Solomon203/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
The NCC has been a particular sticking point for the KMT in past years after the Tsai administration declined to renew the broadcasting license of CtiTV, which had been reported in the past by outlets such as the Financial Times and Apple Daily as directly accepting Chinese funding and editorial say from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office. After losing its coveted broadcast position, CtiTV has switched to streaming.
The KMT later sought to attack the broadcast approval of Mirror TV, which would have taken up the channels formerly occupied by CtiTV. The KMT alleged that the approval of Mirror TV for broadcast, as the expansion of Mirror Media into television broadcasting, only occurred as a result of political intervention by the DPP.
When the KMT sought to obtain investigative powers through the legislature last year, the KMT signaled its intent to investigate the approval of Mirror TV by convening an investigative committee over the issue. Yet in this sense, attacking Mirror TV has been a form of political retribution over CtiTV.
Similarly, the KMT has alleged that efforts by the NCC to regulate Chinese streaming providers, who may politically censor content from Taiwan, are a form of political censorship. More generally, the KMT has sought to mobilize its base with accusations that the DPP has undue control of the media through the NCC
Other suggestions by the KMT in recent times are that NCC appointments should be decided proportionally based on the composition of the legislature, rather than the NCC continuing to be part of the executive branch of government.
But, more broadly, the KMT has also sought to slash the budgets of the NCC and MODA. The NCC saw 50% of its budget as part of the KMT’s budget cuts earlier this year, while MODA had its funding cut by 40%. The KMT’s actions, then, can be understood as part of broader moves aimed at undermining government institutions they do not control.