The mayoral and gubernatorial elections held at the end of last year caused a revolution in Taiwanese television. The opposition candidates, given short shrift by the three over-the-air stations (which are owned respectively by the KMT, the armed forces, and the provincial government), recognized the powerful allure of cable. Their messages were brought virtually everywhere in Taiwan by both the newly legalized cable television stations and the underground ones.

Cable television, satellite television, and underground stations appeared in profusion at the end of last year. Over the course of the elections, the voters greeted these newfangled media enthusiastically, but did these stations really affect the outcome of the elections?

Oposing the power of the big three stations, Jgau-jeng, the New Party's nominee for governor, appeared live on cable shows an average of two or three times a day in the three months before the elections. Staff who arranged his schedule estimates that he answered questions on more than 100 shows.

DPP candidate Chen Ting-nan's exposure on cable stations was no dimmer than Ju's. Nevertheless, in looking at Chen's media strategy, The Journalist, a magazine with a focus on political analysis, opined, "When Chen Ting-nan put a lot of his time and energy into non-mainstream electronic media, the effect was limited to the DPP supporters already in his camp, and was of no use in broadening his appeal."

There are too many variables in the election for governor of Taiwan Province, which covers all on Taiwan outside the special municipalities of Taipei and Kaohsiung. Exposure in the electronic media is only one of many factors affecting such a large electorate. Its effect is limited.

Hence, when cable stations asked people at random who was the DPP's nominee for provincial governor, some would always answer "Chen Shuipien" (actually the DPP's successful candidate for Taipei mayor).

When elections approach, candidates' banners appear everywhere. If it is different this year, it may be because many candidates for the legislature are preparing to make their case on local cable systems. How that would cut down on litter! （photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang）

Did cable television elect Chou Chuan?

Here's something that makes for an interesting comparison: In the 1992 legislative elections, Chou Chuan, then still a member of the KMT, didn't obtain her party's nomination, and she decided to run as an independent. According to Chou, there was a virtual media blackout about her campaign, until a cable system operator within her district took the initiative to broadcast a videotape of her describing her political views. Outsiders thus concluded that cable television played a great part in her election.

But Chou herself, who was formerly a television reporter, says, "I know the media only too well. I'm only going to get noticed if every station has me on the air at prime time. But then, if audiences are halfway through their evening dramas when I suddenly appear, they're not going to like that either!"

She believes that using cable television for greater exposure "is like shooting birds with a shot gun," arguing that the cable station would have been more helpful had its staff hit the streets with staple guns and stacks of her campaign posters.

Experience shows that using cable television sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

Still, regarding television, most politicians believe that "if you want to win, you can't ignore it." One legislator from southern Taiwan says that as old neighborhood streets and back alleys give way to high-rise developments, television becomes the only way into every home. Making speeches at ground level no longer suits the times.

For newcomers with little name recognition, the new medium naturally has great appeal.

Cheng Shu-fen and Chen Chi-mai, respectively KMT and DPP candidates for Kaohsiung legislative districts, say flat out that when cable stations come for interviews or invite them to call-in shows, they go.

News departments cost money, requiring large initial outlays for equipment. Local news wars are breaking out everywhere, and none more fierce than those in Taichung, site of the provincial government.

A new chapter of the Taiwan miracle

Whether cable television can make or break a candidate depends upon the time, the place and the person. Looking at it the other way around, elections have also helped to pull up cable television, the growth of which could be fittingly described as another "Taiwan miracle."

The present cable broadcast system, called "the fourth channel" by most people in Taiwan, is actually different both from the genuine cable television of the future, and from the shared community antennae installed with government permission to solve the problem of poor television reception in remote areas. But the general public usually refers to all three as "cable television." The community antennae were first set up by commercial operators who erected sensitive receiving equipment in high places to pick up the weak signals of the over-the-air stations, which they then amplified and fed into residents' homes through cables.

As time went on, however, simply improving reception was not enough. Operators jumped the legislative gun and started showing movie videos (without, of course, buying the rights to them). And so, carrying programming not on the three over-the-air stations, cable systems began to get the name, "the fourth station." In about 1971, the pioneer "fourth station" appeared in Keelung in northern Taiwan.

Over a period of many years, as the cable companies and the government played a hide-and-seek game of "you cut my cables, and I re-attach them," programming changed and grew more diverse, and the number of customers kept growing.

Some 500-600 companies all across the island laid their cables during the first two decades of the industry's existence (when it was still illegal). In 1993 the Cable Television Law was passed. It carved up the province into 51 districts, each of which are to be serviced by a maximum of five systems. In the past few years, systems both large and small have merged or been acquired. The Government Information Office has twice invited applications for operating licenses, and 209 companies have started licensing procedures. So far, 49 have obtained licenses from the GIO's review committee.

According to surveys conducted by Survey Research Taiwan and Rainmaker, households receiving cable have jumped from 15% to 63% in just four years.

Of the 5 million households islandwide, 3.5 million receive cable programming, making for the highest rate in Asia. Political developments are in large part responsible for the meteoric rise of cable in Taiwan.

Rainmaker's survey showed that "fourth channels" supporting the DPP--called "democracy stations"--grew rapidly before the legislative elections in 1992, when the number of households receiving cable grew 60 percent. In 1993, with cable legal, the growing number of satellite stations offered on cable helped to bring the total up another 20 percent. And during the elections last year, when all parties and factions used cable to get their messages out, the rate of connection went up another 10 percent.

With 50 or 60 channels to graze, what holds your interest: news or entertainment?

Local news fever

Besides allowing for public participation on talk shows, cable systems also provide a local news angle missing from the three over-the-air stations.

All over the island reporters now appear "live at the scene" holding their microphones emblazoned with the call letters of their local cable systems. It adds to a cable system's visibility.

A reporter for Taiwan Television (TTV) says that in the old days of tightly controlled media, the three television stations could neatly line up to film at the scene, with one on the left, one on the right and one in the middle. How things have changed! With so many new stations, a crew that arrives late may find no space at all.

Some forty or more cable systems broadcast news exclusively about their own city or county. Such local cable news shows are found everywhere in Taiwan save the outlying islands.

Those with small news departments, say only 4-6 reporters, usually broadcast only 15-20 minutes of local news a day. The larger news teams, with upwards of ten reporters, broadcast a half-hour of news, scheduled so as not to compete with the big three's 7:00 pm newscasts and 8:00 pm dramas.

The language varies with locale: In Miaoli the systems use Hakka, and elsewhere they use a mix of Mandarin and Taiwanese.

Those rushing to get a piece of the local news pie can be divided into three groups: "democracy stations," which support the DPP; stations in the PHTV Network, a KMT-backed concern that has been buying up cable systems; and stations owned by United Communications, a private network.

The hotly contested regions of Taichung and Kaohsiung are classic "three-way battlegrounds."

Three-way battles

Taichung City is one of the areas of fiercest competition, where nine systems are vying for licenses. Four of the nine produce their own news. In densely populated Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan, seven systems are fighting for licenses, five of which produce their own news. The typical attitude seems to be: "Even if other systems have a larger staff, we will have the same range of programming."

Cable operators are required by the Cable Television Law to invest at least NT$200 million. Establishing a news department--including such basics as hiring reporting staff, buying equipment, and setting up a studio--requires NT$5-8 million. While this may not even amount to one-twentieth of the total investment, for half an hour of programming, it's a low rate of return.

Nevertheless, news has its advantages: It provides a forum for the system's own political views and helps it establish connections locally.

One director of news for a station in Taichung gets right to the point: "News is what can really lay the golden eggs. The cost for advertising during TTV's news is three times what it is during other programming."

Of course, no one dares to say that news programs will definitely bring in advertising money, but news is a good way of increasing visibility, so many cable system operators believe "if others have it, we want it too."

At the same time, "systems without news departments lack credibility," says Cheng Yen-ching, a reporter at Kaohsiung's Chungcheng cable system.

Yuan Hsiang-ping, assistant news director at Taichung's Yunchung system, was a reporter at a democracy channel two years ago. "At the democracy channel, it was easy to get exclusives," she recalls. Two years later, with more and more cable stations forming news departments, she changed jobs.

The rising local news fever has also lured newspeople south from Taipei in search of better career opportunities. The news directors of the cable stations in Kaohsiung and Taichung all used to work in Taipei.

Lin Te-lan, news director for the Wanchung cable system in Kaohsiung, covered the National Assembly for The China Times for five years before deciding to move south two years ago. He mentions the great demand for qualified personnel caused by the relaxation of restrictions on the media, and the importance of getting an early foothold. Taipei is full of talented people in the field, making it hard to establish oneself there. He thinks it is better to try somewhere else.

Chen Nai-hui, manager of Taichung's Chunchien Cable System and "special news coordinator" for the United Communications group, was once anchor of China Television's morning news. Last year he took to the road. Once he got Chungcheng's news on track in Kaohsiung, he was transferred to Taichung, his base for checking out the market for United Communications news in other counties and cities.

Hitting on local potential

The local news on cable in Europe and America is shown only on the over-the-air stations that the cable systems carry. Only in Taiwan have local cable operators established their own news departments.

Chang Chung-jen, the head of the Government Information Office's cable oversight group, believes that establishing news departments is a short-term measure done to please the license granters by showing how a cable system gives something back to the community.

The news department is definitely the most expensive department in any cable system, Chang notes, and he is skeptical about how much news local stations have to report on anyway. From a professional point of view, local activities don't fit the definition of news and certainly aren't worth spending 15 minutes on. Chang recalls what happened when the three over-the-air television stations expanded their news broadcasts from half an hour to an hour. The news didn't increase proportionally, so the news staff resorted to padding and prolonging.

Chang attributes this wave of new news departments to the elections, and predicts that many will be deemed too expensive to continue after the presidential elections next year.

Hsiung Chieh, dean of the Communications Graduate School at the World College of Journalism, who has researched the cable television industries of various countries, believes that the establishment of local news departments reflects the localization of cable here and "comes in response to market demand."

In Britain, where the BBC has great public credibility and provides balanced coverage, there isn't any need for cable companies to produce their own news reports, Hsiung says.

But in Taiwan, a study of the three on-the-air stations' coverage of the run-up to the elections last year, conducted jointly by The China Evening Times and the College of Communications at Chengchih University, found that on ratings-leader TTV, KMT gubernatorial candidate James Soong was mentioned in 52 percent of news broadcasts; Chen Tingnan, the DPP candidate, in 26 percent; and Ju Gaujeng, the New Party candidate, in only 16 percent. It was as if the other two candidates simply weren't running, with rates of mention close to zero.

In Hsiung Chieh's view democracy channels show the extremes to which the opposition has gone to "get its word out."

"On the one hand, localization can help business," Hsiung says. "On the other hand it can work hand in hand with local power." News interviews provide excellent opportunities for public relations and publicity.

Which perhaps explains why cable in Taiwan has almost always been bound up with politics.

It has been all the more so in recent years, with one election after another. In 1991 there were elections to the National Assembly and in 1992 to the legislature. In 1993 there were county and city elections, followed by local elections on a larger scale last year, including those for the provincial governor and the mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung. Every year opposition figures have protested the "unfair news reporting" put out by the three over-the-air stations, and even mobilized their supporters to surround the stations' studios.

If the coverage of the three over-the-air stations pains the opposition, then non-mainstream cable stations are a most soothing balm.

In 1990, the first "Democracy Channel" appeared in Chungho in Taipei County. It broadcast videos showing opposition-led protest marches and speeches by DPP representatives in city councils, county assemblies and the Legislative Yuan. It was the first political channel.

Kaohsiung's "Democracy #1" station was founded the same year. It started broadcasting news, reporting about the Kaohsiung City Council from a DPP perspective. Soon thereafter, Taichung's Democracy Station and Ilan's Continual Spring station also began offering local news.

Taichung's Democracy Station is just a street over from the Taichung DPP party headquarters. The geographical proximity betrays the "closeness" of their relationship.

Lai Mao-chou, general manager of the cable system that produces the Democracy Station, provides an example of what its staff might do to help the DPP: They might turn off all channels on their cable system except for the democracy channel, so viewers can either watch DPP legislator Chang Chun-hong make a speech or watch nothing at all.

Political correctness

Last year, in the month leading up to the elections for provincial governor, the Taichung Democracy Station gained fame when it joined forces with over 100 other cable operators to broadcast "News About the Provincial Gubernatorial Elections." News Director Li Yung-ping was once the owner of a small theater, and she has a master's in television news from NYU. A long-time critic of the system, she bemoans the lack of a public television station. And she says that if she or someone like her got a job at one of the big three stations, they would just end up fighting with people there.

She stresses that establishing a provincewide network wasn't done for the elections per se, but rather represented a move made on behalf of the non-mainstream media and in opposition to the big three.

When the station was covering the gubernatorial elections, some viewers called in asking why they didn't just broadcast news about Chen Ting-nan all day long. Why were they wasting their time with so much about James Soong and Ju Gau-jeng? Li Yung-ping says she could relate to how these DPP voters felt and would talk with them rationally. And when she encountered unreasonable callers, she would just "yell right back at them."

The pro-DPP stances of the station's shareholders don't bother her. "If they really tried to interfere, I would say, 'The DPP protests political interference with the media, so how is it that you are doing the same thing?'" Last year the news department signed a "news staff pact" demanding independence.

Dropping "democracy" is more democratic

Cable television may have earned a name for itself as soon as it entered the fray, but many of the unnamed owners of the cable stations are local politicians. Cable stations are too close to local political factions, and this has made many people wonder about the objectivity and fairness of their coverage.

When the Taichung Democracy Station established a news department, Taichung Mayor Lin Po-jung at first refused to be interviewed, though he finally relented.

But ideally, media, including cable stations, shouldn't have ties to politicians. And so some cable systems that formerly flew vivid political colors have starting changing themselves.

When the Taichung Democracy Station was applying for a broadcast license, it changed its name to Taichung Cable. But getting rid of the word "democracy" was no easy matter.

General Manager Lai Mao-chou frankly admits that he encountered pressure from inside the company. Many shareholders were of the opinion that "using the name 'democracy' had helped us build up name recognition. Isn't getting rid of it now like 'burning a bridge after crossing the river'? Isn't it unethical?"

"We aren't some DPP news bulletin," Lai says. Before the business operation plan was given to the Government Information Office, the company con ducted a survey in the city. The results showed that 92 percent of households supported the change of names.

"The change was in line with most of the audience's wishes for greater tolerance and diversity," Lai says.

At their peak, there were more than 60 democracy stations spanning the island. Today "no more than ten survive," Lai estimates.

"The original political goals for which the stations were broadcasting have all been met," says Wang Hsin-hui, news director of Kaohsiung's Paokuo Democracy Station. "With the mission for that stage accomplished, now they have to face market competition." When it obtains an operating license, the station will call itself Kuomei (which means "beautiful nation"). The name "was picked by a fortune teller."

Lin Chang-yi, assistant director of marketing for Kuopao, is more bold in his predictions: "In two or three years, there will be no democracy stations left, and the market will be carved up entirely by networks out to make a profit. Striving for market share, they will take the position of objective media.

Near matters more

To make money, you need high ratings, and if you want to get high ratings, you have to steal viewers from the three over-the-air stations by offering something that they don't have. Hence, between elections, cable news becomes largely local news.

When you turn on the cable news shows, the person of the hour isn't some distant legislator or some slick-suited bureaucrat. Local officials now get their time in the spotlight. One might even see a neighbor on the screen. Audiences like to watch local news because it makes them feel that the world of news is connected to them.

During last year's elections, when Taipei was in an uproar over DPP Party Chairman Shih Ming-te's suggestion that ROC troops be recalled from the islands of Matzu and Kinmen, audiences from central and southern Taiwan weren't interested. Yet when the starfruit tree was cut down in the Confucius Temple in Kaohsiung, it wasn't simply a case of northern viewers not understanding what all the fuss was about; most of them hadn't even heard of the incident at all!

"If there hadn't been a run on deposits at Changhua's Fourth Credit Cooperative, would the three over-the-air stations have carried any news from Changhua at all?" a reporter in Taichung asks.

Somewhat exasperated, Lin Te-lan, manager of Wanchung cable, says, "In the past few years, there have been cases of dengue fever in Kaohsiung every summer, but it never makes the news. Yet when one case is reported in Chungho in Taipei County, it's built up to be such a big deal that you'd think the whole country had been put on alert."

With satellite channels such as PHTV and CSTV and cable networks like TVBS and CTN expanding their news broadcasts, the share of local news grows as stations struggle to fill up dead time.

People need information about how the environment around them is changing, and thus local news on television can have its practical effects.

Liu Hsing-wei, who is neighborhood chief in Kungyi in Taichung City, says that the electricity meters on the power line poles in the neighborhood can't handle their loads. Several times they have smoldered and smoked, but appeals to the power company fell on deaf ears. As soon as the problem was reported on television, however, repairmen came out quickly. "Now some neighborhood chiefs say that for pot holes and broken streetlights, they'll go straight to the reporters instead of filing complaints at district meetings. The results will come much quicker that way."

Nevertheless, people's lives in any given neighborhood aren't that newsworthy. Stations all have different levels of emphasis. Most first report about government bodies, devoting the last one or two items to community news.

The age of remote control

Lin often warns his reporters not to "serve as the local government's message boys." He admits that most cable news reporters are young (under 30) and still unfamiliar with the territory. They tend to just go to press conferences, lacking the initiative to dig things up on their own and the ability to investigate in depth. After all, cable systems have only been running news departments for two years now; they're still trying to get a firm footing.

Chen Nai-hui, the general manager for Taichung's Chunchien Cable Network, rushes back and forth from north to south, checking on the prospects for news departments in various cable systems the company owns. Taichung is the seat of the provincial government, and Kaohsiung, the largest city in southern Taiwan, is a special municipality directly under the central government. They have enough of their own news. But he has his doubts about whether models for reporting local news made in Kaohsiung or Taichung can be transplanted to places like Keelung or Taoyuan. Will professional newspeople in the hinterlands find enough space to develop their careers? "Counties and cities with insufficient resources can only support one news crew, Chen says. "And doing five minutes of news isn't enough."

He recommends that United Communications cable systems in other cities and counties report on such "soft" topics as community news, consumer trends, and the arts. And he urges reporters not to be constantly looking for breaking stories.

In the run-up to the elections, when the mainstream media will be focusing on the five presidential candidates, there will once again be a need for stations that report on local political news.

The district-by-district nature of the legislative elections makes them suitable for coverage by local cable systems. "And from the parties' perspective, the legislative elections are the real battlefield for political power," says Lin Te-lan of Kaohsiung's Wanchung.

The mainstream stations won't introduce all of the candidates for the legislature in every city and county, and so local news stations can, at the very least, provide the electorate with more information.

Each cable system broadcasts to only a small segment of Taiwan's population. The nineties are an age of great competition in the cable television field. Whether this has an effect on the nature of the media depends on how the viewing public uses their remote controls.

[Picture Caption]

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During the DPP presidential primaries, Taichung Cable provided live coverage from around the island.

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When elections approach, candidates' banners appear everywhere. If it is different this year, it may be because many candidates for the legislature are preparing to make their case on local cable systems. How that would cut down on litter! (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)

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News departments cost money, requiring large initial outlays for equipment. Local news wars are breaking out everywhere, and none more fierce than those in Taichung, site of the provincial government.

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With 50 or 60 channels to graze, what holds your interest: news or entertainment?