GIO Position
The GIO has posted its position paper on the TVBS case onlne. One has the immediate impulse to stop reading at the first paragraph.
In an interpellation on October 7, 2005, Legislator Tseng Tsahn-deng raised evidence of forgery and withholding information on foreign shareholdings by Liann Yee Production Co., Ltd. (widely known as TVBS) when obtaining its business license, and demanded that the Government Information Office (GIO), the authority in charge of radio and television affairs, investigate whether any unlawful practice was involved.
The pan blues are also asking the GIO to act on FTV's shareholding structure, but will the GIO act in this case? Why not? The only answer seems to be that the GIO is not acting to preserve the rule of law, but in order to punish its enemies. See Michael Turton's post from yesterday. The View from Taiwan: GIO Budget Slashed
3 comments:
What's wrong with the first paragraph? They're just claiming that
a) They were just following up an allegation (i.e. didn't take it upon themselves to investigate) and
b) Their action preceded the TVBS exposes on Chen gambling in Korea (so the two things were not connected)
Nothing wrong with that. Plenty of other paragraphs to take issue with though ...
yes,
".....'directly held by foreign shareholders shall be less than 50 percent of the total shares issued by the said business." When TVBS applied for license renewal six months ago, it merely claimed that 47 percent of its shares were [DIRECTLY] held by the foreign legal person, TVB Investment Ltd., with the remaining 53 percent [INDIRECTLY] held by the Taiwan legal person, Countless Entertainment (Taiwan) Company Ltd"
-:)
David,
I should have explained more clearly what I thought was wrong with the first paragraph. The double standard on the FTV issue moots their introduction. If they really follow up on legislator calls for investigation, then they should do the same with all calls.
The fact is that they don't follow up on all lawmaker requests. Nor should they. They need to filter. The first paragraph to me is a patent rationalization. It suggests to me that the entire position is a rationalization and why do I want to read a rationalization? [because I'm interested, that's why!]
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