Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai announced he will sell his prized Taiwan television business, best known for its fanciful animated takes on political and celebrity scandals, because of big financial losses.
In a brief letter to employees of his Next Media Group on Tuesday, Lai apologized for his “failure” in running Next TV.
Next TV has incurred losses of over US$340 million since it was founded in Taipei three years ago, says Next Media’s Apple Daily newspaper. At the TV unit’s much ballyhooed launch, Lai pledged to invest heavily to build a “world class, high-quality digital video and sound platform.”
The group’s television unit and an affiliated company will lay off 500 employees as part of the sale to Lien Tai-sheng, owner of Taiwan’s Era Television, according to Apple. The profit-making Apple Daily and a weekly magazine will not be affected.
Apple editor-in-chief Ma Wei-min blamed the TV business’ heavy losses on Taiwan’s “complicated” political and commercial environment, noting Lai has run into strong opposition because of his “consistently uncompromising anti-Beijing stance.”
Taiwan’s freewheeling democracy protects freedom of speech, but many businesses have distinctive pro- or anti-China positions. Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, but trade across the 160-kilometre (100-mile) wide Taiwan Strait has boomed amid warming relations in recent years, raising the commercial stakes for media companies on this island of 23 million people.