CCTV's outgoing headquarters
China Central Television or
Chinese
Central Television, commonly abbreviated as
CCTV ( ) is the major
state television
broadcaster in
mainland China.
CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes
and is accessible to more than one billion viewers. Most of its
programmes are a mixture of documentary, comedy, entertainment and
drama, the majority of which consists of Chinese
soap operas and entertainment.
This station is one of
the official mouthpieces of the Chinese
government, and reports directly to high-level
officials in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) Central Propaganda
Department.
History
CCTV aired its first ever programme on September 2, 1958, under the
name Peking Television (北京电视台), after an experimental broadcasting
in May 1, 1958. It began its official broadcast on September 2,
1958.On May 1 1973, Peking Television began its colour experimental
broadcast in PAL-D system on its second channel on every Tuesday,
Thursday and Saturday.The name was changed to CCTV on May 1,
1978.
At the end of 1970s, it had evening programs only, usually ending
at midnight. During the summer and winter time, it occasionally
broadcasted daytime programming for students (who were on
vacation). In 1980, CCTV experimented with news relays from local
and central television studios via
microwave. By 1985, CCTV had already become a
leading television network in China. In 1987, popularity of the
CCTV was primed due to the faithful adaptation and presentation of
Dream of the Red
Chamber. This
36-episode TV
series, the first Chinese television drama to enter the global
market, is available on
DVD and is still very
popular. In the same year, CCTV had exported 10,216 programmes to
77 foreign television stations.
Initially, the
Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central
Committee issued directives as to what was appropriate for
broadcasting and was not. During reform in the 1990s, the Party
adopted new criteria for CCTV: "affordability" and "acceptability",
loosening the previous central control. Affordability refers to
purchasing ability of programs, and acceptability requires that a
programme has acceptable content, preventing broadcasts of material
that are against the
CPC,
socialism or
communism, or feature sexual or violent
content.
Like many media outlets in China, CCTV had its state subsidy
reduced dramatically in the 1990s, and has since found it necessary
to balance its role both as a government agency and commercial
broadcaster.
On
September 2, 2008, the new CCTV Headquarters
was opened on the occasion of the 50th anniversary
of CCTV.
Today, CCTV has 16 national channels, most of them aired around the
clock - 24 hour a day, and a
High Definition channel.
2009 fire
On February 9, 2009,
Television Cultural
Center caught fire on the last day of the festivities of
Chinese New Year, killing one
firefighter. The blaze rendered the 42-story structure unusable, as
the zinc and titanium alloy of the outer skin was burnt. The
Mandarin Oriental Hotel was destroyed before its expected 2009
opening.
The fire had implications for the credibility of CCTV, which was
already unpopular because of its dominance in the media. The
incident was mocked by
netizens who
reproduced
Photoshopped photos of the fire
and criticised CCTV for
censoring
coverage. Pictures of the fire were widely broadcast on the
internet, as a result of
citizen
journalism.
Organization
Key staff are transferring to CCTV's
new headquarters
China Central Television, which employs about 10,000 people and had
an annual income of ¥ 1.2 billion yuan in 2006, falls under the
supervision of the
State
Administration of Radio, Film, and Television which is in turn
subordinate to the
State Council of
the People's Republic of China. A Vice
Minister in the latter ministry serves as
chairman of CCTV. The organisation has relationships with regional
television stations run by local governments, which must reserve up
to two channels for the national broadcaster.
The
network's principal directors
and other officers are appointed by the State, and so are the top
officials at local conventional television stations in mainland
China; nearly all of them are restricted to
broadcasting within their own province or
municipality—that receive CCTV
broadcasts. Its
editorial
independence is subject to government policy considerations,
and as a result, it has been charged with being "
propaganda aimed at brainwashing the audience" in
its history and news programmes. The letter, written by a number of
Chinese intellectuals who also called for a boycott of state media,
was posted on a US-based website and has circulated through Chinese
websites.
Journalists working for CCTV-9 are under constant pressure to
present a positive account of China, according to Anne-Marie
Brady's study published in 2008. "In August 2005, a series of items
reported factually on coal mining disaster in China; soon after the
channel's leaders received a warning from the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs that its reports were harming China's international image.
Following this incident, senior editorial staff and journalists
were all forced to write self-criticisms."
Brady says that while the channel's equipment is state of the art,
the employees are not well trained in how to use it, so there are
frequent errors during broadcast. "The political controls on the
station contribute to a general low level of morale and initiative
among station staff," she writes.
The
organization itself is considered one of the "big three" media
outlets in China, along with the People's Daily and Xinhua
.
Programs
CCTV produces its own
news broadcasts three
times a day and is the country's most powerful and prolific
television program producer.Its thirty-minute evening news,
Xinwen Lianbo ("News
Simulcast"), is on the air at 7:00 PM Beijing Time. By far, it is
the most known and watched news program in China which mainland
Chinese watch to keep up with the government's politics: all local
stations are required to carry CCTV's 7 p.m. main news broadcast;
an internal CCTV survey indicates that nearly 500 million people
countrywide regularly watch this program. However, the figure has
slumped in recent years; the program has 10% of the ratings market,
compared to 40% before 1998 - and around 72.8 million currently
watch
Xinwen Lianbo.
Former logo of China Central Television
Although news reform has been a prominent feature of CCTV networks,
the Evening News has remained relatively the same since its first
appearance in the early 1980s, having mainly focused on leaders
receiving foreign guests and going on visits to foreign countries,
the CPC's leaders having top meetings or conferences, and stories
of courage that are supposed to exemplify one form or another of
communism. Many important political news stories are broadcast
through that program.
Focus is also a popular programme on CCTV, first
introduced in 1994. The discussion programme regularly exposes
wrong-doing by local officials, which attracts attention from
higher levels of government that is taken seriously and hold a
meeting to discuss what to do about a particular problem. The
programme later announces how the Chinese government has tackled
the problem. The programme is a chance for strong investigative
journalism.
Its yearly special program of celebrating the Chinese New Year, the
CCTV New Year's Gala, is the
most watched program. In 2007 research data shows that the Gala was
watched by over 800 million people all over the world. It started
in the early 1980s. Each year, some singers and comedians become
famous because of their single performance that night.
The network, considered the most authoritative in China, is usually
the best place for advertisers to win consumer trust of their
products - and to compete with local cable channels.
In 2003, CCTV launched its first 24-hour news channel, initially
available to cable viewers.
Audience share
China's television audience rose to 1.2 billion in 2007, counting
viewers aged four and older. The
2008 Summer Olympics coverage on CCTV
resulted in an aggregate 41% audience share across its network.
However, as more content is becoming more diversified, there has
been some concern that the audience is fragmenting, as the network
is losing out to cable, satellite and regional networks.
In
Guangzhou
for example, CCTV programming only accounted for
45% of a weeks viewing, compared to 78% for Hong Kong's
TVB Jade and ATV and 80% for Guangzhou TV. Similarly,
Shanghai's local stations reported a 71% audience
share over CCTV and popular dramas in a large number of Chinese
cities were located on regional channels. However, the CCTV New
Year's Gala remains extremely popular, which CCTV has at times
estimated more than a 90% audience share.
Personalities
Producing a variety of different programming, China Central
Television has a number of different program hosts,
news anchors, correspondents, and
contributors which appear throughout daily
programing on the network.
CCTV-3 (Art and Entertainment) anchors
CCTV-News anchors
CCTV-9 (English International Channel) program
hosts
Channels
The CCTV channels are listed in sequential order with no discerning
descriptions, e.g. CCTV-1, CCTV-2, etc, similar to those channels
in Europe and in other places around the world.
All CCTV channels are broadcasted independent. The following is
list of the channels with their names:
All CCTV channels are also broadcasted through the following:
Overseas broadcasting
It is possible to receive channels CCTV-4 (
Mandarin channel targeted at an oversea
Chinese audience), CCTV-9 (targeting an English-speaking audience),
CCTV-E in
Spanish and CCTV-F in
French outside China by using a
Digital Video Broadcast
signal (plus additional broadcast support together with
Dolby Stereo,
Dolby
Surround,
Dolby SR,
Dolby Digital Advanced Sound Quality
Definition and Improvement System Support, technologized &
develop by
Dolby Laboratories,
DTS (Stereo Expansion Support),
and the
Sony Dynamic Digital
Sound (SDDS Support) for digital audio system support. CCTV has
just recently switched from
analog
to DVB primarily due to better signal quality and the ability to
charge for reception (about 10 USD per year subscription). The
overseas channels are widely available across many cable and
satellite providers. The CCTV administration will start a CCTV
Portuguese channel by 2010、and a CCTV English-News station by
2011.
CCTV-4 split into three channels on April 1, 2007; one is for
China Standard Time, the second
is for
Greenwich Mean Time
(GMT), and the third is for
Eastern Standard Time (EST), in order
to improve service for audiences around the world.
On July 25, 2009, CCTV launched its
Arabic-language
international channel, stating
that it aims to maintain stronger links with Arabic nations and
that the new channel will "serve as an important bridge to
strengthen communication and understanding between China and Arab
countries". The new Arabic Channel will reach the Middle East,
North Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. From September 10, 2009,
CCTV began broadcasting its
Russian-language channel.
See also
References
External links
Top topics
Wikis
Quiz
Facts
Map
Search
