The international content is selected and edited from sources including Cable News Network (CNN) Associated Press Television Network (APTN), Reuters and Japan's NHK. The first three months of the news show was an experimental, trial-and-error stage during which adjustments were constantly being made to improve the program. Taiwan's expatriates had mixed opinions about it, and feedback from this community proved to be extremely helpful for the production team of nearly 30 people to improve their performance. Taiwan's first hour-long news show was a hot topic on Forumosa.com-a Taiwan-oriented online discussion forum popular with expatriates living and working on the island. Many voiced criticisms, while others were more forgiving, mindful that their mother tongue is a foreign language in Taiwan.
There have been complaints about minor mistakes in the English subtitles, which are provided for several reasons. For one, many viewers are expected to be non-English speakers who would benefit from being able to read along with the commentary. According to government data, over 200,000 visitors come to Taiwan every month, but most consider this to be an extremely conservative estimate. Many come from countries where English is not the official language, yet among the expatriate community in Taiwan, English seems, more often than not, to be the common language.
Other complaints were more specific. "The timing is awful! 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. are either too late or too early," commented one interviewee from Latin America who requested anonymity. "What about the working people?" The producer of FTV English Edition blames this on the fierce competition among the local news channels. If the expatriate community is truly made up of about 600,000 individuals, as is estimated, the better air times will naturally be given to Chinese programming that can reach the wider population of about 22.5 million. "That's the only time slot FTV can offer," Tang said. This also explains why it has been so long in coming. No local commercial-run TV stations wanted to provide news in a foreign language because of the relatively minute audience size. They would be virtually guaranteed to lose money, and so the government has had to offer incentives. Taiwan has no non-profit community access stations like in some Western countries where news shows are available as a public service in Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Greek and a host of other languages without having to compete for revenue.
Still, despite the problems that have yet to be ironed out and the long time it took to get English news on television, the FTV English Edition is an important step in the right direction. The government wants Taiwan to become a regional business hub, attracting investment from overseas. It wants foreign companies to open research and development centers on the island, and it has targeted a huge increase in tourism over the next few years.
None of these goals will be met unless Taiwan becomes a friendly environment for the international language of business. The success of this news show and others like it will be a test of the government's commitment to increasing Taiwan's profile in the international community.
