Chung T'ien Television (CTi TV; ), is a nationwide
cable TV
Cable television is a system of delivering television broadcast programming, programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This ...
network based in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
. It belongs to
Want Want China Times
The ''China Times'' (, abbr. ) is a daily Chinese-language newspaper published in Taiwan and one of the most widely circulated newspapers in Taiwan. Founded in 1950, the China Times Group was acquired by food and media conglomerate Want Want, whi ...
group, which also owns
China Television
China Television Company, Ltd. (CTV; zh, c=中國電視公司, p=Zhōngguó Diànshì Gōngsī, poj=Tiong-kok-tiān-sī-kong-si, zhu=ㄓㄨㄥ ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄉㄧㄢˋ ㄕˋ ㄍㄨㄥ ㄙ), formerly called Taiwan Daytime TV (TDT) from 1969 to ...
(CTV).
History
Founded in 1994, CTi TV was originally called the Chinese Television Network (CTN; ). CTN had two main channels, Chung Tien () and Da Di (). On January 30, 1997, ownership switched from
Yu Pun-hoi (于品海), the current chairman of Nan Hai Corporation Limited (南海控股有限公司), to the
Koos Group.
In 2000, ownership changed once again from KG Group to the Wisdom Group (), which, at the time, also operated
China Television
China Television Company, Ltd. (CTV; zh, c=中國電視公司, p=Zhōngguó Diànshì Gōngsī, poj=Tiong-kok-tiān-sī-kong-si, zhu=ㄓㄨㄥ ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄉㄧㄢˋ ㄕˋ ㄍㄨㄥ ㄙ), formerly called Taiwan Daytime TV (TDT) from 1969 to ...
(CTV). Hsiang Shan merged CTN with CTV Satellite to form Power TV (). As part of Power TV, CTV Satellite became Chung T'ien Entertainment, while CTN's Chung Tien split up into Power TV News () and Power TV Variety (). Power News eventually changed its name to Chung T'ien Information, which then became Chung T'ien Main in January 2004. After the He Hsin-Hsiang Shan ownership transfer, Da Di was granted some degree of autonomy as Da Di Television; however, Da Di eventually became part of
Videoland Television Network, and changed its name to the Videoland Drama Channel. In June 2002, ownership of Power TV changed once again from Hsiang Shan to the
China Times
The ''China Times'' (, abbr. ) is a daily Chinese-language newspaper published in Taiwan and one of the most widely circulated newspapers in Taiwan. Founded in 1950, the China Times Group was acquired by food and media conglomerate Want Want, whi ...
; Power TV changed its name to present-day Chung T'ien Television (CTi TV).
In April 2019, ''
The Nikkei
''The Nikkei'', also known as , is the flagship publication of Nikkei, Inc. (based in Tokyo) and the world's largest financial newspaper, with a daily circulation exceeding 1.73 million copies. The Nikkei 225, a stock market index for the Tokyo ...
'' reported that CTi-TV parent company received millions in subsidies from the
Chinese government
The government of the People's Republic of China is based on a system of people's congress within the parameters of a Unitary state, unitary communist state, in which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacts its policies through people's ...
. In November 2019,
Wang Liqiang, a self-proclaimed PRC spy who defected to
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, claimed that CTi TV had received Chinese funding in return for airing stories unfavorable of the Taiwanese government.
The Want Want China Times Group denied these allegations.
On 22 April 2019, during a news report on the last episode of Taiwanese television drama,
''The World Between Us'', it was discovered CTi TV used a pirated source of the drama during the report while putting a watermark claiming to be recorded from
Public Television Service, who broadcast the drama.
In November 2020, the
National Communications Commission (NCC) announced that it would not renew CTi TV's broadcast license for
CTi News as it found multiple violations against the network for bias and
disinformation
Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...
.
CTi News ended its final cable broadcast at 23:59 on December 11, 2020. however, CTi News continues to broadcast on its YouTube channel and its own app, while its sister channels
CTi International (abroad only),
CTi Entertainment and
CTi Variety also continues to broadcast on cable and satellite. CTi TV had also been fined a total of NT$11.53 million (US$400,932) for 25 breaches of media regulations between 2014 and 2020.
The
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was the one party state, sole ruling party of the country Republic of China (1912-1949), during its rule from 1927 to 1949 in Mainland China until Retreat ...
has continued to press for renewal of its broadcast license.
Incidents
In the 2012 Anti-Media Monopoly campaign,
National Yang-Ming University's post graduate Lin Ting An invited
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
professor,
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
, an American linguist, philosopher and activist, to hold a placard with the campaign slogan in Chinese, loosely translated as ''Against media monopoly, refusing Chinese manipulation, protecting free press, I am in _ _ protecting Taiwan''. As Chomsky is not literate in Mandarin, this resulted in Want Want China Times group and Chinese academics to question was Chomsky misled. Lin subsequently explained that she had explained her position and had translated the words to him.
CTi TV sent a reporter to interview Chomsky, Chomsky said that he would not have taken the photo if he knew the placard included Anti-China wording and the incident was due to a misunderstanding and his illiteracy in Chinese. CTi TV subsequently released the interview leaving out the translation of "I'm against media monopoly and I'm in favor of free press" and not providing any subtitles. After the public did a translation of Chomsky's interview and publicised the mistranslation and lack of subtitles, more than 200 complaints were filed against CTi TV with the NCC. On the next day, CTi TV apologised and replayed the interview with the correct translation and subtitles.
In 2012, CTi TV reported that a member of public brought fries from MacDonald's into a cinema hall operated by
Warner Village Cinemas and was rejected entry and allegedly had his food thrown away by their staff.
Vieshow Cinemas' public relations (PR) manager refuted the events, noting that CTi TV has named the company wrongly (Vieshow Cinema was formerly known as Warner Village Cinemas till 2004) and that their reporter has lied to him asking for an interview based on that the package contains bread instead of fries. The PR manager promised to reject any interview requests from CTi TV in the future.
In 2013, when former United Kingdom's prime minister
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
died, CTi TV reported her death on its 8pm news segment with a video of United Kingdom's Queen
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...
.
CTi TV made an urgent change to its news segment and later apologized on both their channel and website.
In July 2019, CTi TV was fined NTD 1.6 million by the NCC for mis-reporting that it was fined NTD 1 million for reporting that the Chinese embassy in Japan dispatches stranded Chineses at
Kansai International Airport
Kansai International Airport (), commonly known as Kankū (; ), is the primary international airport in the Keihanshin, Greater Osaka Area of Japan and the closest international airport to the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. It is located on ...
in
Osaka
is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...
, Japan during
Typhoon Jebi in 2018. The rescue operations were reported by other new channels. NCC clarified that the NTD 1 million consisted of 2 parts, NTD $600,000 fine for reporting that
Taipei Representative to Singapore,
Francis Liang, was monitoring
Kaohsiung
Kaohsiung, officially Kaohsiung City, is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Kaohsiung City has a population of approximately 2.73 million p ...
mayor
Han Kuo-yu
Han Kuo-yu (Chinese language, Chinese: 韓國瑜, born 17 June 1957), also known as Daniel Han, is a Taiwanese politician and retired Republic of China Army officer who is the current president of the Legislative Yuan.
Han graduated from the ...
during his February visit to Singapore and NTD $400,000 fine for a report about "auspicious clouds" during Han's campaign in 2018.
In January 2020, they were fined NT$600,000 (US$20,033) for broadcasting a false statement by KMT Tainan City Councilor Hsieh Lung-chieh. The regulator found that CTi TV's journalist had failed to question or ask for evidence at the time and that CTi TV had failed to do any fact verification regarding the statement before broadcasting it.
In 2023, CTi was accused of spreading anti-American
disinformation
Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...
about a supposed U.S. "plan to destroy Taiwan."
Channels
Since the closure of
CTi News, CTI TV offers two main channels, as well as an International channel for viewers living outside of the island of Taiwan.
*
CTi Variety
*
CTi Entertainment
*
CTi International (Abroad only)
See also
*
Television in Taiwan
Logos
Image:CTN logo.jpg, 1994 - 1999 (CTN)
Image:CTi logo.jpg, 2002–present
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chung T'ien Television
Television stations in Taiwan
Chinese-language television stations
Television channels and stations established in 1994
1994 establishments in Taiwan
Companies based in Taipei