Besides meting out the fines to Formosa TV and China Television, the NCC also issued warnings to nine other stations for airing the physical confrontation that erupted between ruling and opposition legislators while reviewing the Local Government Act.
The stations that received warnings include Taiwan Television, Chinese Television System, CTi News, SET News, TVBS, ERA News, ETTV News, EBC Financial News and Formosa News.
NCC spokeswoman Chen Cheng-tsang said fines were issued to FTV and CTV because each station had committed five similar violations within the past three years.
Jason Ho, head of the NCC’s Department of Broadcasting Contents, stated that broadcast news should be suitable for a general audience and that the all the news stations had violated program rating regulations through their coverage of the violence that broke out in the Legislature.
The fact that images of the incident were broadcast into living rooms around the country without leaving out any details, and for an extended period of time, could make for easy access to such information by children. “This is something we are very concerned about,” Ho said.
The NCC cannot tell television stations “what they should do,” he continued, but in other countries, coverage of wars and other violence-related news is handled using methods such as freeze frames, editing of graphic images and broadcast delays to prevent inappropriate content from being aired.
Responding to the NCC’s decision to issue fines, Mary Chen, chairwoman of Satellite Television Broadcasting Association’s self-disciplinary committee, said the physical standoff at the Legislature should not be equated to acts of violence on the street. She pointed out that the background to the altercation had political significance that was important to relay to viewers.
Chen questioned whether the NCC’s interpretation of the “general audience” rating for program content might be too rigid if incidents such as the scuffle are not allowed to be aired.
Also on March 24, an NCC-appointed communication content committee discussed a ruling Kuomintang political advertisement that included footage of the fracas at the Legislature. The committee concluded that although the ad contained certain flaws, it did not violate relevant regulations as the images used were edited and shortened in duration. The NCC decided not to mete out a fine for the ad, but requested that improvements be made in the future. (SB)