GIO Promulgates Cable Television Act

Source: History of Taiwan’s Television Development
From: Emaze. Authors: Hsü Yü-tz’u, T’ien Yü, Liu Tsung, Yang Tzu-hsüan, Huang Wen-yü, Ch’en P’ei-jung, Su Jou-wei, Liu Kuan-t’ing

From 1990 onward can be described as the golden era of Taiwan’s television history. The “Cable Television Act” and “Interim Management Measures for Cable Television System Broadcasting” were successively implemented, and the market entered a legal era. Conglomerates and capitalists began investing; content suppliers provided programming; licensed footage proliferated; the “Big Three” terrestrial networks were left in the dust; “fourth channel” cable television boomed; subscribers exceeded three million; operators made enormous profits.

Around 1993, just before and after formally entering the “new cable era,” the market was still chaotic. The Executive Yuan’s unified designation for operators yet to receive licences was “cable television programme broadcasting systems.” There were over six hundred such broadcasting systems; based on the GIO’s announced fifty-two regions across the island — with a maximum of five operators per region — only approximately one hundred and fifty could remain.

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External Links

• Cable Television Act (Wikisource)
• [Quick Guide] Everything You Need to Know about the Three Broadcasting Laws (Part 1) (Watchout)
• [Quick Guide] Everything You Need to Know about the Three Broadcasting Laws (Part 2) (Watchout)
• The Clause Barring Parties, Government, and Military from Media Ownership: Binding Their Hands — and Also Binding Taiwan’s Media Development (But Not Overseas Corporations) (Yowu Report)