Deal Sought to Continue Independent Broadcasts to Mainland China

The head of the DPP, Ms. Tsai Ing-wen, has raised the concern that political influence explains CHT’s refusal to renew the station’s contract.

She told The Epoch Times on June 10, “We cannot rule out the possibility of political factors, because Chunghwa Telecom has no justifiable reason for this decision.”

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) has sketched the outlines of a deal that would satisfy the concerns of both CHT and NTD AP.

In his second letter on this issue to Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou, dated June 2, Rohrabacher wrote, “The close link between CHT and the Taiwan government gives CHT the strength to resist Beijing’s demands. NTD should thus be served from the ST-2 satellite, with other CHT customers who are not targets of Beijing’s censorship efforts moving to other satellites as CHT sublet clients.

“Such an arrangement would protect NTD’s freedom without losing any business to CHT. I have been informed that CHT is willing to make an effort to find another satellite that can implement such a win-win solution.”

Almost two weeks have passed since the budget resolution passed out of committee in the Legislative Yuan and so far no deal has been announced. NTD AP is concerned that CHT is not bargaining in good faith.

Ms. Theresa Chu, spokesperson for NTD AP, pointed it out that CHT did not inform NTD AP beforehand of its intention not to renew the contract. “If CHT knew all along that it needed to shrink its market presence with the launch of ST-2, why didn’t it tell existing customers well in advance? Why did it wait until NTD AP approached CHT with a request for renewal?”

Ms. Chu also points out that CHT has refused to provide a key piece of evidence for its claims—the details of bandwidth usage on ST-1 and ST-2.

While the usage is kept a secret by CHT, the bandwidth capacity of the two satellites is known. According to publicly available sources, the ST-1 has bandwidth of 120 MHz and ST-2 has bandwidth of 180 MHz. NTD AP says it requires 4 MHz, or 2.2 percent of the ST-2 bandwidth.

If NTD AP is going to continue to broadcast, something needs to be worked out in the next few weeks. While NTD AP’s contract with CHT expires on Aug. 9, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission requires notification one month in advance of a broadcaster switching satellites, which means the effective date for CHT to agree to put NTD AP on ST-2 is July 9.