Developments and Setbacks

China’s first TV station, Beijing Television, began broadcasting on May 1, 1958. Within just two years, dozens of stations were set up in major cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, although most stations had to rely on using planes, trains, or cars to send tapes and films from one to another.

The first setback for Chinese television came in the early 1960s, when the former Soviet Union withdrew economic aid from China. Many TV stations were closed, and the total number was reduced from 23 to five. The second setback derived from an internal factor, the Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976. Beijing Television’s regular telecasting was forced to a halt in January 1967 by the leftists of the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong. All other local stations followed its lead. Television stations were criticized for their bourgeois direction and changed to a new, revolutionary direction as a weapon for class struggle and anti-imperialism, antirevisionism, and anticapitalism.

Beginning in the late 1970s with the end of the Cultural Revolution and the start of the country’s reform, television became the most rapidly growing medium. On May 1, 1978, Beijing Television changed to China Central Television (CCTV); as China’s only national network, CCTV had the largest audience in the world. From the 1980s through the 1990s, television developed swiftly. The total number of TV stations once exceeded 1,000, with one national network, dozens of provincial and major city networks, and hundreds of regional and local ones. The government reregulated the development of television when it became out of control and chaotic in the late 1990s. In 2000 China had a total of 651 TV stations that generated programming, 42,228 TV-transmitting-and-relaying stations, and 368,553 satellite-TV-receiving-and-relaying stations. By the early 21st century, China had 270 million TV sets, becoming the nation with the most TV sets in the world. Statistically, there is one television set for each Chinese family. The penetration rate of television in China has reached 92.5 percent, covering a population of 1 billion people.

Television broadcasting technology has also developed very quickly. A few major stations have started using high technology for production and broadcasting, such as virtual field production technology and high-definition technology. CCTV opened its webcast service in 1996 to the worldwide audience, providing text, audio, and photographic and video images. Digital broadcasting technology has been set as one of the priorities of China’s “Tenth Five-Year Plan” for 2001 to 2005. Based on that plan, by 2005 all television programming will be transmitted via digital technology.

System and Structure

The only form of television in China, as well as all other media in the country, is state owned. Neither privately owned nor foreign-owned television is allowed. Without government permission, receiving foreign TV programming via satellite is prohibited by law. There are no license fees for owning a TV set and no charge for viewing broadcast television. Until the late 1970s, Chinese television was not allowed to carry advertising. Instead, the medium was completely financed by the government.

Media theories undergirding the organization and uses of Chinese television flow directly from Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Mao Zedong, the founder and late chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, further embellished Marx’s idea of the importance of the super-structure and ideological state apparatus and Lenin’s concept of the importance of propaganda and media control, stressing that media must be run by the Communist Party and become the party’s loyal eyes, ears, and mouthpiece. The current leadership of the Communist Party requires that broadcasting must keep in line with the party and serve the party’s main tasks voluntarily, firmly, and in a timely manner.

Under these guidelines, television is regarded as part of the party’s overall political machine. Television is used, to the greatest extent, by the party and state to impose ideological hegemony on the society. It is the party and the central government that set the tone of propaganda for television. Although TV stations provide news, entertainment, and educational programs, Chinese television’s first function is to popularize party and government policies and motivate the masses in the construction of Communist ideology.

A tight control and administrative system has been used to run television. The Communist Party is actually the owner, manager, and practitioner of television. All TV stations are under the dual jurisdiction of the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department and the government’s Radio and Television Bureau, while the party’s Central Propaganda Department is under the supervision of the Political Bureau of the Party’s Central Committee. The Propaganda Department sets propaganda policies, determines programming content and themes, and issues operational directives. Technological, regulatory, and administrative affairs are generally the concern of the Radio and Television Bureau. As media are crucial political organs of the Communist Party, virtually no independence of media is allowed or envisioned. Except for those years in the 1980s that were criticized later by the party as the period of “Western liberalization” and the period of “bourgeois spiritual pollution,” neither open debate on ideology nor criticism of the party, government policies, or high-ranking officials has been permitted in communist China. The self-censorship policy has been long and extensively used. Routine material does not require approval from the party authorities, but important editorials, news stories, and sensitive topics all require official endorsement prior to their dissemination.

Programming and Production

Television programming in China consists of five categories: news programs, documentary and magazine programs, educational programs, entertainment programs, and service programs. In 2000 roughly 10 percent of Chinese programming (in terms of total broadcasting hours) was news; 10 percent, documentary and magazine shows; 2 percent, educational; 60 percent, entertainment; and 18 percent, service oriented or advertising.

Although entertainment programs now occupy the bulk of the total broadcasting hours, before the reform in the late 1970s there were not many real entertainment programs. Prior to that period, most entertainment programs were just old films of revolutionary stories, with occasional live broadcast of modern operas about model workers, peasants, and soldiers. Newscasts from that era were mostly what the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, The People’s Daily, and the official news agency, the Xinhua News Agency, reported. Production capability was low; production quality was poor; equipment and facilities were simple; and broadcasting hours, transmitting scales, and channel selections were limited. Television broadcast usually lasted three hours daily.

Television has developed explosively since the reform beginning in 1978. Many taboos were eliminated, restrictions lifted, and new production skills adopted. Entertainment programs in the form of TV plays, soap operas, Chinese traditional operas, game shows, and domestic and foreign feature films have become routine. News programs have also changed substantially and expanded enormously. International news coverage and live telecasts of important news events are now often seen in news programs. Educational programs in particular have received special treatment from the government. In addition to the 2 percent of total broadcasting hours for educational programs, China now has two satellite TV channels (CETV-1, CETV-2) and one Beijing-based regional TV station (CETV-3) designated to broadcast educational programs only. Altogether, in 2000 the three educational TV stations broadcast 17,864 hours of programs, more than 50 hours per day. College courses offered by China Central Broadcasting and Television University make up 45 percent of this programming; education-related newscasts, 4 percent; general education and science education programs, 24 percent; social/public education programs, 11 percent; and service programs and advertising, 16 percent.

Production capability has been remarkably enhanced since the reform. CCTV expanded from two channels in 1978 to nine channels in 2000, with Channel 1 focusing on news; Channel 2, economy and finance; and Channel 3, culture, arts, and music. Channel 4 is dedicated to overseas Chinese and international audiences. Channel 5 shows sports; Channel 6, movies; Channel 7, social programs, including children’s programs; and Channel 8, TV plays and series. Channel 9 is an English-language channel that broadcasts 24 hours a day, targeting an international audience. Channel 10 focuses on science. Another new channel that will focus on tourism is to be launched soon.

Most provincial and major city networks have also increased the number of their broadcasting channels and offered more programs. In 2000 alone, a total of 455 TV plays with 7,535 episodes were produced, plus 12 TV plays with 263 episodes jointly produced by Chinese and foreign TV organizations. In contrast, in the two decades from 1958 to 1977, only 74 TV plays were produced. In 2000, TV stations across China produced 164,834 hours of news programs, 18.9 percent of that year’s total television productions.

Broadcasting hours have increased considerably as well. In an average week of the year 1980, 2,018 hours of programs were broadcast. The number went up to 7,698 in 1985; 22,298 in 1990; and 83,373 in 2000, reflecting a 3.5-fold increase in five years, an 11-fold expansion in ten years, and a 41-fold explosion in 20 years.

Internationalization and Commercialization

One of the most important tokens of the internationalization of Chinese television is the change in the importation of programming. Before the reform of the late 1970s, TV imports were quantitatively limited and ideologically and politically oriented. From the late 1950s to the late 1970s, only the national network was authorized to import TV programs, and it did so under the tight control and close surveillance of the party and government. During those years, programs were imported almost exclusively from socialist countries, and the content usually concentrated on the Soviet Revolution and the U.S.S.R.’s socialist economic progress. Few programs were imported from Western countries, and those were restricted only to those that exemplified the principle that “socialism is promising, capitalism is hopeless.”

During the reform period, the ban on most imports was gradually lifted. Today, although they still face various kinds of restrictions, central, provincial, regional, and even local television stations are all looking to other countries, mostly Western nations, as sources of programs. Moreover, import channels, import purposes, import criteria, import formats, and import categories have all changed, expanded, or developed significantly. In the early 1970s, imported programming occupied less than 1 percent of the total programming nationwide. The figure jumped to 8 percent in the early 1980s, to 15 percent in the early 1990s, and to around 25 percent in 2000. The Ministry of Radio, Film, and Television now dictates that, unless special permission is obtained, no imported programs are allowed to be shown during prime time (between the hours of 1900 and 2130) and that imported programs cannot fill more than 15 percent of prime time.

A second token of the internationalization of Chinese television is the organizing of TV festivals. In 1986, Shanghai Television held China’s first international TV festival, with Sichuan Television organizing another festival in 1990. Since then, one international TV festival has been held in China each year. Recognized as the largest TV festival ever held in Asia, the 8th Shanghai International TV Festival (held October 2000) consisted of a programming competition, a program fair, an exhibition of television equipment and facilities, and an academic seminar on television. A total of 1,487 television organizations and companies from 47 countries attended the festival; 413 programs participated in the competition; and 9,328 episodes of programs were purchased.

A third token of internationalization is the effort to expand exportation of China-produced TV programs to other countries. Major Chinese TV stations have produced programs for the global TV program market and have even become main programming suppliers of some television stations in other Asian countries. In addition to holding TV program fairs at TV festivals to promote program exportation, CCTV and a few major city networks have set up offices in the United States, Britain, France, Belgium, Russia, Egypt, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, India, Thailand, and Australia to promote business. In addition, CCTV and a few other major Chinese TV stations have established joint-venture business with television stations in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania to broadcast programs via satellite. CCTV’s international and English-language channels are now broadcast via China’s own satellite and are available in most countries around the world.

In one sense, the most significant change in Chinese television since the reform is probably the medium’s commercialization, that is, the resurrection of advertising on television and its impact on programming. Advertising was halted for three decades following the Communist Party ascent to power in 1949, but since the end of the Cultural Revolution, economic reforms have revived the importance of market forces and the power of advertising. Both domestic and foreign advertising were resurrected in the late 1970s. Throughout the 1980s, television’s revenue from advertising increased at an annual rate of 50 to 60 percent and in 1990 reached 561 million Chinese yuan (about $100 million at that time), compared with no revenue 12 years before. In the 1990s, television became the most commercialized and market-oriented medium in China and attracted a large portion of advertising investment from both domestic and foreign clients. For the hundreds of television stations across the country, advertising and other commercial activities now constitute the majority of programming revenue, ranging from 90 percent as the high end to 40 percent as the low. In 2000 the nationwide total TV advertising revenue was approximately 1.7 billion yuan (about $2 billion), accounting for 23.7 percent of China’s total advertising revenue. Among the top ten advertising revenue makers, four are television stations, with CCTV at number one on the list. In the 1990s, several fully commercialized television services, such as the Shanghai-based Oriental Television and the Guangzhou-based Zujiang Delta Television, were established. Their operation is stripping away all state financial support. To a certain degree, fewer government subsidies may give TV stations more programming flexibility.

New Trends and New Directions

Since the early 1980s, under the Communist Party’s liberalization policies, Chinese television has become a most popular medium, a very technologically advanced broadcast system, and a service capable of highly professional performance. Moreover, Chinese television has also become much more open than before, unprecedentedly commercialized, and remarkably pluralized, except in political content. Both media practitioners and segments of the public have striven to make television a political forum, and their efforts have met with progress and setbacks, successes as well as failures. By and large, Chinese television in the early 21st century is still a state-owned and party-controlled political and ideological instrument. However, television in China has to a certain extent evolved to fulfill other purposes as well, serving not only the party and the state but also society and the public.

Both cable television and satellite television in China have developed rapidly since the early 1980s. During the 1980s and 1990s, cable television became an important presence in all provinces and major cities, and especially at the county level, as thousands of cable services were established. As both cable and satellite TV services swiftly grew, party and government officials came to worry that the state could not effectively administer, or politically and ideologically control, the expanding television industry. At the end of the 1990s, the central government restructured both the cable TV service and the satellite TV service. Many cable stations that generated small amounts of programming were forced to close by the government, a few satellite stations operating without government approval were stopped, and all remaining cable and satellite stations were merged into the main television stations in each place, forming one large TV unit.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Chinese television has undergone another profound shift, this time moving toward conglomeration, as China aims to become more competitive both in the domestic television market and in the global television arena. An ambitious multimedia, multidimensional, multilevel, and multi-function operation, the China Radio, Television, and Film Conglomerate was formed in 2001. It consists of China Central Television, China Central Radio, Beijing International Radio, China Film Corporation, and China Radio and Television Online, making it the largest and most powerful media entity in China’s history. Following suit, a few economically advanced provinces and big cities, such as Shanghai, Guangdong, and Hunan, have also started the conglomeration process in the media sector, especially in the broadcast media sector.