30-second overview: TTV went on air in 1962, ushering Taiwan into the television age. PTS was founded in 1998, Taiwan's first non-commercial public broadcaster. In 2016, Q Series drew ratings of just 0.5 percent, yet it pulled Taiwanese drama out of the idol-drama and rural-soap-opera mold. From "party-state-military monopoly" to "gentle revolution," the 54-year history of Taiwan's television industry is a story about who gets to tell the story.
From the 486 PC to Primetime
On October 10, 1962, Taiwan's first television station, Taiwan Television (TTV), officially went on air in Taipei.1 That year, the world was at the height of the Cold War, and Taiwan was still under martial law. A television set was a luxury item, priced at roughly two years' wages for an ordinary person.
But the magic of television quickly made Taiwanese people willing to borrow money just to buy one of these "black-and-white metal boxes."
Three years after TTV's launch, in 1965, there were only 30,000 television sets nationwide; by 1969 that number had passed one million. On October 31, 1969, the second station, China Television (CTV), went on air; on October 31, 1971, the third, Chinese Television System (CTS), followed.2 These three stations became known as the "Big Three," and they monopolized Taiwan's television market for a full 30 years.
The Big Three's ownership structure was summed up as "party, government, and military media": TTV was owned by the Taiwan Provincial Government (provincial-run), CTV was owned by the Kuomintang (party-run), and CTS was owned by the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Education (state-run).
These words later became the rallying cry of Taiwan's media reform movement: "Party, government, and military — out of the media."
Nights of the Joint Broadcast Era
From the 1970s through the 1980s, the Big Three operated under a distinctive system: the joint broadcast (聯播).
During primetime (8 p.m.), the three stations would jointly air the same program. Mandarin-language dramas such as The Story of a Great Era and Cold Current aired simultaneously in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung. Each month, a rotating "duty station" took charge of joint-broadcast affairs, producing a landscape where cooperation and competition coexisted.3
This joint-broadcast mechanism later became the forerunner of public television programming.
In 1980, then-Premier Sun Yun-suan first proposed establishing a public television station to produce advertising-free programs with social and educational value. In 1984, the "Public Television Program Production Team" was formed, requisitioning broadcast time slots from the Big Three to air its programs.4
But it took 18 years from proposal to realization.
The Public Television Act: An 18-Year Wait
In 1990, the "Public Television Preparatory Task Force" was established to push forward the founding of PTS. In 1993, a draft of the Public Television Act was submitted to the Legislative Yuan for review.5
Civic groups such as the "Alliance for the Founding of Public Media" played a key role in pushing the legislation forward, helping ensure PTS's independence and public character. In 1996, figures from academia and culture formed an alliance, joining forces across sectors to push for the passage of the Public Television Act.
On May 31, 1997, the Legislative Yuan passed the Public Television Act on its third reading. On July 1, 1998, the Public Television Service Foundation was formally established, and PTS officially went on air, becoming Taiwan's first public broadcaster that was neither commercial nor under direct government control.6
PTS's founding mission: to serve the public interest by providing educational, cultural, and public-service programming, with programming operations to remain independent and free from interference.
Its first board chairman was Wu Feng-shan, and its first general manager was Liao Tsang-sung. Programming spanned news, documentaries, drama, and children's shows, with an emphasis on public service and cultural depth.
In 2006, PTS merged with CTS to form the "Taiwan Broadcasting System" (TBS).7 In 2007, Hakka TV and Taiwan Indigenous Television joined the TBS group. In 2019, PTS launched Taigi TV (台語台), becoming Taiwan's first public television channel broadcasting entirely in Tâi-gí (Taiwanese).
Wang Shaudi's Math Teacher
One name recurs again and again in the history of PTS: Wang Shaudi.
From childhood, Wang Shaudi felt that "her soul lived in the wrong gender." As a child she had no choice but to wear a uniform to school, but when the family went out to eat and she was made to wear a skirt, she would cry and stomp her feet at home. In high school, she saw a film about gender identity at the Xinsheng Theater beside Zhongshan Hall, and sat alone in a shaved-ice shop crying: "So I wasn't the only person in the world like this after all."8
She smoked and skipped school, and had already changed three schools by the end of elementary school. She scored single digits on math tests, and hiring a tutor didn't help. Her father shook his head and said she should transfer schools. While the adults were talking things over in the office, she ran from the third floor to the first, shouting as she went, "Goodbye, everyone, I'm transferring!" But after she got in the car, her father told her that the math teacher had said Wang Shaudi was actually very bright — the teacher explained every problem three times, and she understood it the first time, so she put her head down and slept. She didn't transfer after all.
After that, the curriculum moved from geometry to algebra, and her grades jumped from the teens to 95. But once the unit changed again, they collapsed once more. On graduation day, her qipao-wearing math teacher asked her what she planned to do if not sitting the joint college entrance exam. She said she'd play basketball. The teacher said nothing — she thought she was about to be hit — but instead, out of nowhere, tears spilled from the teacher's eyes: "Oh, Wang Shaudi. What a shame. Go on home."9
That sentence changed everything. She joined the Tamkang High School basketball team and played all the way to the provincial games, earning a spot to be admitted directly into a physical education program. But one day she suddenly remembered that sentence, and began to wonder whether life held other possibilities. She sat the joint university entrance exam and was admitted to the Department of Drama at Chinese Culture University.
In 1975, she went to Trinity University in Texas to pursue a master's degree in theater. After returning to Taiwan, she decided she would no longer dwell on questions of gender, nor pretend to be anyone else: "If you're at ease with yourself first, others will be at ease with you too."
From Whole Family Happiness to Q Series
From the late 1980s through the 1990s, Wang Shaudi made a series of "ordinary people" television dramas for CTS: Whole Family Happiness (1989), A Happier Family (1990), and A Hen Raising Ducklings (1992). These works did not chase ratings miracles; instead, they trained the camera on ordinary Taiwanese households — grandmothers playing mahjong, couples arguing, children sneaking cigarettes.10
In an era when Taiwanese television was still dominated by primetime soaps and variety shows, these works quietly proved that television drama could carry social warmth.
In 1992, she and her creative partner Huang Liming co-founded Rice Film Studio (稻田電影工作室), and from then on produced primarily for PTS.
In 2000, Wang Shaudi directed Doctors in a Big Hospital for PTS, starring Lan Ching-lung and Ma Chih-hsiang. That same year, Meteor Garden swept across Asia, and idol dramas officially became a keyword in Taiwanese television. Doctors in a Big Hospital was compared to Meteor Garden and hailed as "Taiwan's first-generation idol drama" — but it was also Taiwan's first true workplace drama.
Over the next fifteen years, the name "Wang Shaudi" recurred again and again on Golden Bell Award lists: The Year I Was Nine in 1999, Going to the Banquet in 2004, Sunny Days in Kenting in 2008, and The Hedgehog Boy in 2014.
In 2014, Wang Shaudi received the 18th National Award for Arts, recognizing her lifetime contribution to Taiwanese film and television.
Q Series: A Gentle Revolution at 0.5% Ratings
In 2016, Wang Shaudi launched her most ambitious project yet.
She saw that Taiwan's production environment had deteriorated, drama genres had flattened out, and there was a generational gap in acting talent. So she joined forces with 8 directors, including Tsai Ming-liang and Chen Yu-hsun, to co-found "Q Series" (植劇場) — an experimental platform for nurturing new actors and expanding dramatic genres. 4 genres (coming-of-age romance, suspense and mystery, supernatural horror, and literary adaptation), 8 productions, spanning a full year.11
On August 19, 2016, Love of Sandstorm premiered on TTV. Overall ratings hovered between about 0.45% and 0.76% — not high figures, but thanks to its innovative genre material and high production quality, the series shone in online word of mouth and at the Golden Bell Awards.12
At the 2017 Golden Bell Awards, Q Series received a total of 24 nominations and ultimately took home 5 major awards. Works such as Close Your Eyes Before It's Dark, Love of Sandstorm, Life Plan A and B (荼蘼), and Have You Ever Fallen in Love, Miss Jiang? pulled Taiwanese drama out of the idol-drama and rural-soap-opera mold.
"Making television is a form of social movement — the moment the TV turns on, it enters every household, and the impact is far greater." — Wang Shaudi13
That line from the interview explains everything. Wang Shaudi came up through film (Tsai Ming-liang has said she was his film mentor), yet she has always chosen television over film. Why? Because television's power to reach people is something film simply cannot match.
After Q Series, she launched "Q Series 2" (茁劇場) again in 2022, carrying forward the same spirit — discovering new talent, exploring genres, and taking every story seriously.
Industry Data: An Output Value of NT$162.5 Billion
In 2021, Taiwan's television industry recorded total revenue of NT$162.535 billion, up 7.71 percent year-on-year.14 Digital distribution and broadcasting grew the most, at 26 percent.
But behind the numbers lie structural challenges:
- The market is limited in size, making it difficult to raise production budgets
- Advertising revenue is shrinking under the impact of OTT streaming platforms
- Talent is flowing out to the Chinese market
- In the era of digital convergence, the traditional viewership-fee revenue-sharing model faces challenges
In 2016, television industry export revenue accounted for just 0.74 percent of total output value, with the domestic market still the primary outlet.15
From Analog to Digital: The 2012 Turning Point
On June 30, 2012, Taiwan shut down its analog terrestrial television signal, moving fully into the digital era.16 This marked another critical turning point for Taiwan's television industry.
TTV's main channel upgraded to HD on December 29, 2014; CTS's main channel upgraded to HD on October 1, 2015; and CTV's main channel upgraded to HD on February 15, 2016. Taiwan currently has 8 free terrestrial television channels: TTV, CTV, CTS, FTV, PTS, Hakka TV, Taiwan Indigenous Television, and the Legislative Yuan Channel.
But behind digitization came the rise of OTT platforms. Streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix, and Hami Video changed how audiences watched. The traditional viewership-fee revenue-sharing model has come under pressure, and advertising revenue has shrunk.
Who Has the Power to Tell the Story?
From TTV's launch in 1962, to the founding of PTS in 1998, to Q Series in 2016 — the 54-year history of Taiwan's television industry is a story about who has the power to tell the story.
In the Big Three era, the storyteller was "party, government, and military"; in the PTS era, it was "the public interest"; in the Q Series era, it was "ordinary people."
Wang Shaudi has said: "Being told no is the beginning of your growth."17
Q Series' gentle revolution continues to this day. In 2021, Netflix invested NT$1 billion in Taiwan's film and television industry, and many Q Series productions gained international visibility. New actors such as Greg Hsu, Sun Ke-fang, and Liu Kuan-ting emerged from Q Series to become mainstays of Taiwan's film and television industry.
If someone in 2050 wants to know what Taiwan's television industry once tried to do, what they read may well be these Markdown files — the record of a platform that sold no advertising, and how it tried to tell a story everyone came to love.
Further Reading:
- Golden Bell Awards — The Big Three's seventeen years of exclusivity, PTS and cable channels joining the list, Netflix's entry — the winners' column for the Best Drama Series award is another record of this industry history
References
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