Formosa Television Co., Ltd.
Sanlih E-television Co., Ltd.
CTV Cultural Enterprise Ltd.

Case:

Key Words:

viewer rating, material trading information, obviously unfair act

Reference:

Fair Trade Commission Decision of December 24, 2008 (the 894th Commissioners' Meeting), Dispositions Kung Ch'u Tzu No. 097165, No. 097166, and No. 097167

Industry:

Television Broadcasting (6021)

Relevant Laws:

Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law

Summary:

1. This case originated from the fact that the National Communications Commission issued a letter to the Commission, and the content of the letter is abbreviated as follows: the public reflected that there was a concern that Formosa Television Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Formosa Company") and Sanlih E-television Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Sanlih Company") involved in exaggerating program viewer ratings. At the time when Formosa Company broadcast the program "Home" on May 21, 2008 for the first time and inserted the message to celebrate that the viewer rating of the program ranked first domestically. And at the time when Sanlih Company broadcasted the program "Full of Love," on June 25, 2008 for the first time, it inserted the information, the viewer rating of the program "ranks first domestically." Furthermore, the Commission initiated an ex officio investigation on CTV Cultural Enterprise Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "CTV Company") and handled matter that CTV Company announced the investigation findings of the viewer rating in the program "CTV News Global Report", but failed to simultaneously disclose the methods of investigation. Such an act of CTV Company was an obviously unfair act sufficient to affect trading order.
2. The findings of FTC after investigation showed that at the time when Formosa Company broadcasted the program "Home" on May 21, 2008 for the first time, Formosa Company inserted the messages, "the viewer rating of the program, Home, ranked first," and "the rating was continuously No.1 domestically". At the time when Sanlih Company broadcasted the program "Full of Love" on June 25, 2008 for the first time, it inserted the message, "after the program was broadcasted, its viewer rating ranked first domestically". As in the program"CTV News Global Report", CTV Company inserted the investigation findings of the viewer rating that "the viewer rating of the program ranked first domestically". All of these three companies failed to simultaneously disclose important trading information, which encompassed the investigating company, time of investigation, range of the region being investigated, investigated targets, methods of investigation, methods of sampling, value of sampling error, quantity of samples, and quantity of effective samples. When the investigation findings of the viewer rating were announced on TV screens publicly, and the aforesaid information was unable to be disclosed completely. Therefore, the information should have been supplemented by speaking such information aside with the aim of balancing reports. In the same way, the aforesaid information should have also adequately disclosed on print media or on its website. On the basis of this point, such acts of the aforesaid three companies, obviously unfair and sufficient to affect trading order, violated Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law. Accordingly, these three companies were imposed with an administrative fine of NT$ 100,000 respectively, and were ordered to cease the unlawful acts pursuant to the fore part of Article 41 of the same Law.

Appendix:
Formosa Television Co., Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice Number: 96975768
Sanlih E-television Co., Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice Number: 23740512
CTV Cultural Enterprise Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice Number: 18556744
Summarized by Wang, Horng-Shiuan; Supervised by Yeh, Tien-Fu