Television Programming in China: Modern World
China Central Television Headquaters(CCTV)
In the late 1970s, with the end of the Great 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 the country's only national network, with the largest audience body in the world. From the 1980s throughout the 1990s, television underwent swift development. The total number of TV stations once reached more than 1,000, with one national network, dozens of provincial and major city networks, and hundreds of regional and local ones. The government reregulated TV development when it became out of control and chaotic in the late 1990s. In 2000, China had a total of 651 programming-generating TV stations, 42,228 TV transmitting and relaying stations, and 368,553 satellite-TV receiving and relaying stations. With 270 million TV sets in 2005, China became the nation with the most TV sets in the world, with a penetration rate of 95.8% in 2006.
Television broadcasting technology has also developed very quickly. Both cable television and satellite television have developed rapidly. Except at the central level, thousands of cable services were established in all provinces, major cities, and especially at the county level during the 1980s and 1990s. A few major stations have also started using high technology for production and broadcasting, such as virtual field production technology and high-definition technology. Digital broadcasting technology has been set as one priority of China's Tenth Five-Year Plan from 2001 to 2005. However, the only form of television in China is state ownership. No private-ownership or foreign-ownership television is permitted. Without government permission, receiving foreign TV programming via satellite is still illegal and prohibited.
The media theories that underpin Chinese television broadcasting come directly from Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Mao Zedong further embellished Marx's idea of the importance of superstructure and ideological state apparatus and Lenin's concept of the importance of propaganda and media control. Leadership of the Communist Party has followed Mao's course requiring that broadcasting keep in line with the Party and serve the Party's main tasks voluntarily, firmly, and in timely fashion. Under these guidelines, television is used by the Party and the state to impose ideological hegemony on the society. The Party and the central government set the tone of propaganda for television. Although TV stations provide news, entertainment, and education programs, television's first function is to popularize Party and government policies and motivate the masses in the construction of Communist ideology. The Communist Party is actually the owner, the manager, and the 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 bureaus at different levels. The self-censorship policy has long been extensively used. While routine material does not require approval from Party authorities, important editorials, news stories, and sensitive topics all require prior endorsement by Party authorities.
In general, television programming consists of five categories: news programs, documentary and magazine programs, education programs, entertainment programs, and service programs. Among the total broadcasting hours, roughly 10% are news programs, 10% are documentary and magazine programs, 2% are education programs, 60% are entertainment programs, and 18% are service programs and advertising. Although entertainment programs occupy the bulk of the total broadcasting hours, before the reform in the late 1970s there were not many real entertainment programs. In those years, most entertainment programs were old films of revolutionary stories, with occasional live broadcasts of modern operas about model workers, peasants, and soldiers. Newscasts were mostly what the Party's official newspapers and the official news agencies reported. Production capability was low, production quality was poor, equipment and facilities were simple, and broadcasting hours, transmitting scales, and channel selections were limited.
Nevertheless, television production and programming have developed explosively in the last 20 years. Many taboos have been eliminated, restrictions have been lifted, and new production skills have been 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, and education programs have received special treatment from the government.
Television production capability also has been remarkably enhanced since the reform. CCTV has expanded from two channels in 1978 to twelve channels in 2002, and most provincial and major city networks have also increased broadcasting channels and offered more programs. 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, a 3.5-fold increase in five years, an 11-fold expansion in ten years, and a 41-fold explosion in 20 years.
The most important token of the internationalization of Chinese television is the change in programming importation. Importation before the reform was 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 under tight control and close surveillance of the Party and the government. Few programs were imported from Western countries, and these few were restricted only to those that exemplified that "socialism is promising, capitalism is hopeless." During the reform period, the ban was gradually lifted. Today, central, provincial, regional, and even local television stations are all looking to other countries, mostly Western nations, as a source 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% of the total programming nationwide. The figure jumped to 8% in the early 1980s, 15% in the early 1990s, and around 25% in 2000.
Efforts have also been made to expand exportation of China-produced TV programs to other countries. Programs produced by major TV stations have entered the global TV program market. In addition, CCTV and a few other major Chinese TV stations have established joint-venture businesses with television stations in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania to broadcast programs via satellite. CCTV's International Channel and English Channel are now broadcast via satellite and are available in most countries across the world.
The most significant change in Chinese television is commercialization. Advertising was halted for three decades following the Communist Party's ascent to power in 1949, but 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%. In the 1990s, television became the most commercialized and market-oriented medium and attracted a large portion of advertising investment from both domestic and foreign clients. Presently, the majority of programming revenue, ranging from 90% as the highest to 40% as the lowest, is being funded by advertising and other commercial activities. In 2000, the nationwide total TV advertising revenue was 16,891 million Chinese yuan, 23.7% of China's total advertising revenue. <>Overall, under the modernization policy, the Open Door policy, the marketization policy, and the decentralization policy, in the last two decades television in China has become a very popular medium, a very technologically advanced broadcast system, and a highly professionally performed service. Television's function has evolved from a single-purpose one for political and ideological propaganda only to a multipurpose one for serving both the Party and the government and society and the public as well.
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