Taipei, Feb. 20 (CNA) Taiwan's top media regulator said Wednesday that it cannot finalize approval for a major acquisition by Want Want China Times Group because the group has not yet met the three conditions specified.
The National Communications Commission (NCC) last July approved the media group's acquisition of the cable TV service of China Network Systems but imposed three conditions, saying they were in the interest of preventing media monopoly and protecting freedom of speech.
The Want Want group currently owns the Chinese-language daily China Times, Want Daily, and Commercial Times as well as CTiTV, China Television and China Times Weekly magazine.
The NCC stipulated that in order to gain full approval for the acquisition of China Network Systems, the group should sever its ties with the news network CTiTV, that China Television should become a non-news channel, and that an independent news editing and reviewing body should be established at China Television.
In late December, Want Want President Tsai Eng-meng entrusted 75 percent of the group's shares in CTiTV to the Industrial Bank of Taiwan, in an effort to meet the first condition laid out by the NCC.
His son Tsai Shao-chung also stepped down as CTiTV's president in January this year, in an attempt to further distance the group from CTiTV's management.
But the NCC said that entrusting shares to the Industrial Bank of Taiwan was not in line with the requirements. The first condition stipulates that Want Want should not control or hold any stake in CTiTV directly, indirectly, or under the names of others, the NCC said.
It also said that the impartiality of the trust supervisor in the stake transfer was questionable.
NCC Chairperson Howard Shyr said that the media regulator also has doubts about a report submitted by the group on an independent news editing body at China Television.
(By Hsu Hui and Ann Chen)