Popular Taiwan TV channel fined, president forced out

Mar 30, 2007, 10:55 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan's top media regulator Friday fined a popular cable television channel for lying about the source of a news footage showing a gangster challenging the law, and ordered that the station replace its president.

'We have decided to fine TVBS with a total of 2 million Taiwan dollars (62,500 US) for violating relevant regulations by broadcasting a video highly unfit to be showed to the public,' said National Communications Commission (NCC) spokesman Shih Shih-hao.

Shih said TVBS must also replace its president within a week for failing to stop the improper footage from being broadcast.

The punishment came after the TVBS aired a five-minute recording of Chou Cheng-pao, a notorious gangster in Taichung, central Taiwan, challenging the police and another gangster, Liu Rei-rong, on Tuesday.

The footage, shot in a motel room, showed Chou sitting in a bed with guns and rifles lying in front of him as he admitted to participating in three recent gun battles in Taichung and voiced grievances against Liu.

'If I see you again, I will kill you!' Chou shouted into the camera while, waving a pistol and pulling the trigger.

The video sent shockwaves across Taiwan and left many people fearing for their safety and doubting whether police or gangsters were in control.

TVBS initially claimed that Chou had made the tape himself and sent it to the channel. But on Wednesday afternoon, TVBS informed police that the video was shot by its reporters for Chou in the motel room.

The confession prompted parliamentarians of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, who have long been upset by the TV's critical stand against the government, to demand TVBS be shut down.

Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang also demanded that the independent commission seriously punish the TV station.

NCC spokesman Shih said Friday that 11 other TV stations which broadcast the same footage will also be punished. He did not elaborate.

Those stations, which claimed they obtained a copy of the footage from police, aired the same footage half an hour after the TVBS broadcast. TVBS Thursday said it gave the original footage to police and kept a copy for it to broadcast.

TVBS, which has apologized for the lie, has so far fired two reporters involved in producing the controversial footage. Five of its officials were questioned Friday by prosecutors over whether they knew beforehand the footage was staged by the reporters.

Police on Thursday also arrested Chou, who was hiding in a village hut in central Taiwan. They discovered that the firearms displayed through the video were all toy guns.

Since Taiwan dropped restrictions on the media in the late 1980s, the country's television market has ballooned from three state-controlled TV stations to 100 24-hour cable channels, triggering fierce competition among TV companies and reporters.

In the battle for scoops and viewers, some Taiwan channels sensationalize or even fabricate news.