Visiting Report of the Taiwan Public Television Station

On January 9th, 2017, our English Tour Guide Club in BTCC (ETGBC) visited the Taiwan Public Television Station in Neihu under the leading of Tammy.  The Taiwan Public Television Station arranged a docent to guide us into the mystery of the public television station.

Our first spot was the studio.  Although it is a small-to-medium sized studio, it is about 3 meters in height and surrounded by sound-proof black cotton curtain.  We saw four windows on the wall.  Those are deputy control rooms on the upper side to control the situation in the studio.  At the corner of the studio, we found the Cat Road. The Cat Road is the light maintenance channel of the studio in early days.  Now it is replaced by instrument control panels and lifting control equipment.

Then, we came to the main control room located on the 7th floor.  The main control room can be said as the heart of one television station.  It takes responsibility for all signal broadcast and the signal cannot be interrupted.  Thus, the main control room is on duty 24 hours every day.  It is necessary to keep someone always in the main control room.  If any situation urgent happened, they must respond immediately and adopt appropriate treatment.  I think the job needs someone bold and considerate.  The docent then explained to us about the annual budget of the public television station.  It has a budget about 1.5 billion NTD and of which 900 million are government-funded.  It has other sources of funds such as business and industry cooperation, corporate sponsorship, venue rental, overseas income, Network mall and so on.

After visiting the master control room, we went to warehouse of props and matte paintings, located in the basement.  The current area of this warehouse is about 3310 m².  One side of the warehouse connects to a super-huge elevator with loading about 4,000 kilograms, which carries props to every studio.  All kinds of props and matte paintings are stored in the warehouse.  When one program unit needs props or matte paintings, they come to find available materials, combining and modifying to some new props or matte paintings.  Because of the complexity of props, systemic management is also a big challenge.

Finally, we came to the briefing room.  Another staff explained Peopo Citizen Journalism to us.  Peopo Citizen Journalism is an online news platform based on local citizenship.  Through local observation and in-depth coverage of citizen journalists, it is possible to unearth news that is close to the life of the masses and to know more about the real situations of the common inhabitants living on this island.  We watched a few Citizen News related to Beitou.  Truly speaking, it really made us eager to become citizen journalists.

After watching the citizen news, our visit was near to the end.  We stopped in the hall to take pictures with the well-known Fruit Grandmother statue, then we walked away from the Public Television Station.

As we all know, the program content of the public television station is high-quality, clean, not sensational, and not cruel, compared to other media nowadays.  Our continuous supporting and watching is the energy to keep the public television station going.