The National Communications Commission (NCC) went ahead Wednesday with a decision to force ERA TV's entertainment channel to cease broadcasting at midnight Dec. 30, despite a protest by the channel and a call from lawmakers to put the decision on hold. The independent NCC announced that from that time onward, channel 45, which at present is allotted to ERA TV, will carry the signals of Star TV's entertainment channel in northern Taiwan and Top TV's entertainment programs in the south. The Taipei High Administrative Court has begun to set up a procedure to hear ERA TV's complaint about the closure order, a process that might take a while. Any ruling it hands down can be appealed at the Supreme Administrative Court. ERA TV took out a front-page newspaper advertisement Wednesday in which it accused the NCC of backpedaling on the country's democratic progress by 'revoking its operating license and shuttering its entertainment channel, seriously damaging freedom of expression.' However, the NCC pointed out that the decision was made based on the fact that ERA TV has repeatedly violated the Satellite Broadcasting Act and that the decision 'has nothing to do with freedom of expression.' NCC spokesman Chen Cheng-tsang said that TV broadcasters are reviewed every two years and that NCC records show that since 2004, ERA TV has been warned of the possible consequences of its continued and repeated violations of the Satellite Broadcasting Act. In February this year, when ERA TV requested a renewal of its license, the NCC gave it a one-year grace period, on the condition that it must not break the law again, Chen said. However, within one month, ERA broke its promise not once but several times, leading to the NCC decision not to renew its license, according to the spokesman. Ho Chi-sen, a NCC department director, produced evidence of ERA TV's lawbreaking. Ho showed a video recording of an ERA program in which the host and the guest touted a commercial product, an act of advertising rather than giving the audience real information. Some of the channel's embedded advertising went as far as exaggerating the medical effects of various so-called 'health products,' in violation of medical and health products laws, Ho said. According to Ho, an absolute majority of the members of the public who called to comment on the matter took the side of the NCC, with some of them saying the NCC should have punished the law-breaking broadcasters much sooner. 