During the Commission Meeting held on this day (Jan 16), the National Communications Commission (NCC), with view to maintaining the autonomy of journalism, and preventing intentional and malicious monopolies within the media, as well as stimulating the industry, passed the draft of the "Media Pluralism Maintenance and Anti-trust Act" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft").
NCC stated that since the inauguration of the incumbent commissioners, the “Media Anti-trust Law Group” has been formed and has undertaken comprehensive research into the issue. Preceding the 755th Commission Meeting in August 2017, the commissioners agreed to conduct public consultations based on the Draft’s preliminary structure and provisions. However, due to the dramatic changes in the IT and internet industry over the past two years, the traditional media ecosystem, including print media, broadcasting and television have been facing new challenges in terms of development of open and cross-border services.
Consequently, NCC therefore incorporated key issues of the Draft into the "Communication Policy Consultation Document in the Era of Convergence (Green Paper)" in 2018, once again compiling public opinion so as to form consensus on the issue. After comprehensive discussions and revision, the Draft was passed today.
NCC stressed that the freedom of speech as guaranteed by Article 11 of the Constitution embodies the freedom of communications, namely, the freedom to operate or utilize broadcasting, television and other communications and mass media networks so as to impart information and speech as clearly stated in the Reasoning section of the #613 constitutional interpretation of the Grand Justice.
The Reasoning states further that in light of the said functions of mass media, the freedom of communications not only signifies the passive prevention of infringement by the state’s public authority, but also imposes on the legislators the duty to actively devise various organizations, procedures and substantive norms so as to prevent the formation of a monopoly on information and ensure that pluralistic views and opinions of the society can be expressed and distributed through various platforms of communications and mass media, thus creating a free forum for public discussions.
Given the aforementioned reasons, NCC stated that the Draft consists of 7 chapters and 41 articles, and holds the values of guaranteeing pluralism of speech at its core. Primarily the contents cover regulation of media (mergers, acquisitions, or other forms of actions having direct/indirect/common control over the business), maintaining professional autonomy of news media, promoting balanced development of multiculturalism, and safeguarding the right of access to the media for the disadvantaged and regulation of media competition.
In order to highlight the Draft’s feature of "profiting first", NCC also stated that the title of the Draft has been amended from the "Media Anti-trust and Pluralism Maintenance Act" to the "Media Pluralism Maintenance and Anti-trust Act," as regulating media integration is only an auxiliary measure to ensure pluralism.
NCC emphasized that media pluralism should also take into account the maintenance of the professional autonomy of the news media. Thus, the Draft also requires news and financial channels and channels broadcasting news programs to set up a “self-involved” (broadcasts that involve the channel's own interests) content-processing principle, an independent editorial review system, and the editorial statute, and to establish a journalism ethics committee, and complaints mechanism, as well as other similar self-regulation measures, so as to enhance the overall quality of news programming and professionalism.
NCC stated that the Draft clearly stipulates that the competent authority shall establish special funds with an eye to improving the balanced development of media pluralism and the quality of news and programming. In addition, it also incorporates the promotion of "media literacy" into the scope of rewards and subsidies of the Communications Supervision and Management Fund, which, as explicitly specified in the Draft, shall subsidize journalists' associations to organize professional training, career counseling and related exchange activities with the hope of cultivating greater professional competence of individuals working in the industry.
As for the regulation on media integration, NCC stressed that the Draft adheres to the principles of "rectifying large businesses while relaxing control over small ones" and "clear and feasible". In addition to the structural regulation, integration applications not exceeding the stipulated “red line” shall undergo a case-by-case "yellow line” review process in which the promotion and derogation of public interest of the case shall be taken into consideration prior to any authoritative decisions being made.
In response to the impact of internet media brought by digital convergence, NCC said that they will also consider the influence of the internet on the audience while conducting reviews on integration applications to meet the purpose of the law.
As for cross-media mergers and investments, NCC said that the Draft stipulates any integration among broadcasting media, national daily newspapers and multimedia content delivering platforms shall obtain permission from NCC. A clear red line of control is set up, prohibiting the integration among the businesses whose number of subscribers account for more than 20% of the total number nationwide, the integration among the TV broadcasting businesses, the media whose market share exceeds one-third of the entire market after integration, and the same business and its related parties owning more than three kinds of media businesses after integration.
Regarding the widely discussed issue about whether there should be a limitation on the number of news and financial channels or channels broadcasting news programs possessed by the same media group, NCC decided, considering the overall number of channels and individual influences will become more complicated and changeable after digitization, not to impose any limitations. In the case of encountering similar integration cases in the future, the case-by-case "yellow line” review mechanism shall be adopted as the criteria for scrutiny and meet the purpose of the Draft.
In addition, NCC also stated that another widely discussed provision known to “separate media and financial companies” is designed to avoid unfair competition and concentration brought by the advantage of the financial groups to the media industry. After thorough discussion, the commission resolved to keep the provision, but it shall only go into effect for the media integration cases after the formal implementation of the Draft.
Moreover, NCC has also adopted the related principles of the Draft to review the media integration cases completed prior to the implementation of the Draft with discretion and has not found any violation.
NCC finally stated that preceding the deliberation and approval during the Commission Meeting, the Draft will be handled in accordance with the legal procedures and forwarded to the Executive Yuan. In the future, NCC shall fully cooperate with the Executive Yuan to complete the review process before they send it to the Legislative Yuan to complete the legislative procedure.
