Taiwan’s Flagship Public Media Dreams

This is a translation of the original《公媒法》並非擴大政府對媒體的控制, by Chiang Ya-chi (江雅綺), an associate professor in the Graduate Institute of Intellectual Property at the National Taipei University of Technology. She is also a director of the board at Central News Agency (CNA). Originally published by Voicettank, translation by Tim Smith.

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Taiwan’s news media environment has been the subject of ridicule for a long time, and since the explosion of digital media of all forms its quality as continued to deteriorate. Commentators on media culture are often warning that companies in the media space should move towards consolidation, so the industry as a whole can avoid cutthroat competition and a race to the bottom in terms of quality. But in reality, to actually achieve media consolidation in an industry that prides itself on expression and voicing contentious viewpoints is a Herculean task.  

In this already convoluted environment, the Ministry of Culture unexpectedly announced it will try to tackle this problem head on, by consolidating all government-funded (both fully and partially) media organizations, including Public Television Service (PTS, 公視), Chinese Television System (CTS, 華視), the Broadcasting Corporation of China (中廣, which runs Radio Free Taiwan), the Central News Agency (CNA, 中央社), Hakka Television and Taiwanese Indigenous Television. The first step in this project is to amend the existing Public Television Act, the legal basis for establishing public access television, into the broader Public Media Act.

The vision is to create one consolidated public media corporation, which would have enough resources to create higher quality content and for exporting Taiwan’s cultural values. Exporting Taiwan’s culture internationally is certainly easier said than done, so to publicly declare this ambitious vision is commendable in itself.

Consolidating the media, especially by the government, certainly raises questions of monopoly on speech and stifling dissent. This question is especially poignant in Taiwan, because Taiwan was ruled as an authoritarian state until as late as 1987, and the media was controlled by the ruling party as propaganda mouthpieces. In 2013, student protesters blocked a proposed deal by Chinese investors acquiring a cable TV distributor in Taiwan, citing censorship and propaganda concerns.

But on closer analysis, the draft bill actually does not increase government control, but instead addresses three areas of concern: public oversight, funding, and existing workers’ rights.

In terms of oversight, currently the boards of some publicly funded media outlets are appointed by the Executive Yuan without further approval. The bill stipulates all future directors and supervisors be approved by the Legislative Yuan. The bill also calls for half of the directors to be up for re-appointment every two years to reflect changing public opinion, as well as an open process for hiring a CEO for the public media group. With regards to funding, the bill changes the current practice of the Ministry of Culture allocating annual budgets to each public media outlet, to establishing a public media endowment to ensure a more steady and independent funding source. As for workers’ rights, existing employees will be mostly retained and there will be employee representatives on the board of directors.  

In other words, according to the current draft of the bill, the Executive Yuan will lose its sole right to appoint the board of directors, its power to decide the budget, and the management of the new media corporation will be a professional decided by an open hiring process. The government will in fact lose much of its control over the current slate of public media operations.

Global ambitions, market forces

When the Ministry of Culture announced the vision behind the Public Media Act, it stressed three goals: public oversight, global reach, and commercialization. The draft bill addressed much of the public oversight issues, but the latter two goals are worthy of more in-depth discussion.  

During the press conference for the draft of the Public Media Law, the Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun strongly emphasized the need for national-level media brands and for more creators to produce better content. These two goals are complementary but also somewhat distinct; production and promotion requires different sets of skills and resources. Right now, there is CNA which is a newswire agency, and certain brands like PTS which is news heavy but also engaged in producing drama series, as well as Hakka and Indigenous TV which is heavier on cultural and educational content. Within the proposed consolidated public media corporation, how to avoid duplicating efforts while using existing staff and resources to their strengths will be critical.

In other words, if consolidation simply means putting existing operations under the same management regardless of how different each existing media outlet’s market positioning and strengths are, there will be problems down the line. There needs to be consideration given to finding synergies between existing operating units and fitting them within a well thought out grand strategy, while giving each media brand a certain amount of independence.

I have also heard from a friend who hopes the new consolidated public media corporation can operate more efficiently and flexibly as a commercial enterprise as it retains the spirit of providing objective, trustworthy news. I believe this is also the general expectation from the society at large. Even as a consolidated media brand, it will operate in the same competitive market as other commercial media brands. If public media does not produce quality products it will be tested in the marketplace like everyone else.

To a certain degree, both public and private sector media enterprises operate the same way; both are competing for attention. Private sector news organizations provide news that serves a public purpose, and many publicly funded media collaborate with private sector enterprises.

For example, as a news agency, CNA has invested in correspondents around the world, and licenses its content to other media organizations. Another example is the A Taiwanese Tale of Two Cities, a collaboration between PTS, KBRO and now streaming on Netflix and broadcasting on traditional television. Finally, CTS and Voice of America now has content-sharing arrangements, where CTS can obtain first hand coverage of news from Washington, DC. and Voice of America can boost its Asia coverage.

Taiwan is not a particularly large media market, and the resources to support media organizations are limited. The expectations for a flagship public media corporation are many; and it not only can project Taiwan’s cultural values, but also elevate Taiwan’s media landscape.

(Feature photo taken from Wikicommons)