Taikung Television
Taikung Television (第五電視, Fifth Television) was a Beduan television channel that operated from 2016 to December 2017. The channel was an alternative to the programming offered by Yao Bedu, Lotus Television, Commercial Television and Hatuan Television. The channel shut down due to unprofitability and sold its shares later.
History[edit | edit source]
Following the shutdown of analog television transmissions, the government issued a call for licenses. A new television channel would commence operating on channels 5 and the 50-59 range of the DTT platform, with channel 5 being in HD. In April 2015, the license was awarded by Taikung Television, whose name was to justify the fact that it was going to be the fifth broadcaster.
Taikung made experimental broadcasts on May 1, 2016, and then went regular on the 18th of the month. Taikung broadcast over two channels: the Taikung Main Channel (50 in SD and 5 in HD) and the Taikung International Channel (51 in English). A news channel was added in June on channel 52.
Taikung had wasted around 2,500,000BD$ in hiring a number of well-trained and qualified actors, technical members and presenters, most of them coming from other networks, to front the new channel. Initially the channel made a terrible first impression, with ratings being lower than those of Lotus Television, where the viewership figures were lower than O,6%. Nonetheless, the channel did manage to make historical figures of around 8,7%, surpassing Lotus, Hatuan and Yao Bedu, on October 30, 2016 with a two-hour live interview with actor Chen Shankong. Taikung got a raise in its budget and advertisers and became profitable, to the point that it managed to end its short-lived reputation as "the last in ratings". Its English-language channel, however, failed to get decent programming sources but wasn't forced to shut down as per regulations.
The channel stayed in its format until technical difficulties occured on November 30, 2017. Many programs failed and most of the time the channel was showing blank screens. The next day, it was announced that an internal strike on the previous day was told to all news outlets and that Taikung was to shut down on the evening of December 15. As a consequence, the frequency was to be auctioned to a new buyer and the winner was to be announced months later.
Taikung shut down at 9pm on the scheduled date, the last live program, the news, ended at 7pm and was followed, unceremoniously, by reruns of past dramas. The English channel simply shut down at 6:30pm after its news bulletin and the news channel shut down as soon as the main channel's news finished. Until 9pm, its sister channels froze, then at 9pm they went blank.
Taikung was declared bankrupt on December 17, with its terrestrial license being sold to a cable network. Unlike Sondria Television, plans to revive it as an OTT broadcaster were out of question. Some of its presenters moved to progressive news channels, but would later have their jobs pulled off later due to restrictions imposed in 2019.
Naak Nai has taken over the licenses but hasn't started regular broadcasts yet.
Channels[edit | edit source]
Taikung TV operated four channels.
Programming[edit | edit source]
- Taikung News
