Time to Upgrade Taiwan’s Public Broadcasting

This is a translation from the original 整併推出《公共媒體法》，所為何來？ by Lo Hui-wen (羅慧雯), who holds a PhD in economics from Kyoto University and teaches media related topics. Originally published by Voicettank. Translation by Chieh-Ting Yeh.***

Taiwan’s Public Television Service (PTS) turned 20 years old in July this year. To celebrate, PTS produced a special song and put out a book, even held a big event on June 30.

But this momentous event in Taiwan’s media and even democratic history was mostly overlooked by the public. PTS only came back to the public discourse when the Public Media Act was proposed by the Ministry of Culture. What is the purpose of a public broadcasting outfit? How much or how little government involvement is appropriate? These are all questions worth considering, especially in today’s global media and technology landscape.

In short, the new act will consolidate the various media-related operations that are currently funded by the government, including several TV stations, radio, and a newswire service.

Critics of the proposal have generally focused on the public oversight of the new public media corporation, and on the details of just how a litter of media operations with different directions can be successfully merged into one.

However, I believe the most pressing issue is how will the new media corporation fulfill its mission of transforming Taiwan’s media industry and projecting Brand Taiwan globally. Taiwan’s news media and entertainment media industries today face serious challenges. Senior Yo Taiwan’s ability to produce and broadcast its own media content. Taiwan’s own audiences are also deeply influenced by TV shows and other content from China: palace intrigue, historical dramas and variety shows produced with enormous budgets are what Taiwanese people chase after and chat about. Not to mention, China’s horde of online trolls and the “50-cent party” are exploiting Taiwan’s freedom of speech, spreading fake news and manipulative comments online, destabilizing Taiwan’s democratic process.

To fight against China’s invasion in the cultural sphere, Taiwan must actively invest more in our own cultural activities. A publicly visible media brand that has enough weight in the industry and firepower is necessary to protect Taiwan’s ability to define its own narrative, both within Taiwan and internationally. A media brand large enough to establish its trustworthiness and credentials is also essential to curbing fake news and online rumors. The existing PTS, with an annual budget of merely $900 million NT (roughly $30 million US dollars), is not equipped to tackl`e these challenges by any stretch of the imagination. In comparison, US’s Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s annual budget is $445 million US dollars, and South Korea’s Korea Broadcasting System’s annual budget is $323 million US dollars, ten times that of Taiwan’s.

As freelance reporter in Korea Yang Chien-hao points out, when Korea’s Yonhap News Agency newswire service issued their coverage of the recent deadly derailment in eastern Taiwan, instead of citing reports from Taiwanese news media, it cited China’s Global Times, the mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist regime. Yang says that Taiwan’s reporting is often unfocused, lacking in facts, and contains too much commercial conflict of interest and hard to understand slang in Taiwan. Even foreign reporters who read Chinese find Taiwanese media hard to follow, making Taiwan’s news reports unusable.

I have also heard on many occasions in Taiwan: “Many Taiwanese news channels are already available to foreign viewers, so we’re good to go on international broadcasting.” I wonder what these people think of Korean media citing a Chinese Communist mouthpiece to report on a story in Taiwan? It’s already difficult enough to get to the truth of a story reported by commercial media that relies on click-rates and advertising, can we seriously expect our current commercial media to act as a communication channel for Taiwan and the world?

Taiwan’s public media must leave the path of being a struggling boutique media shop, have the support it needs to aim for bigger goals, and become an influential voice for Taiwan in the world.

(Feature photo of PTS’s 20th Anniversary Celebration, from PTS’s Facebook page)