CCTV has a variety of functions, such as news communication, social education, culture, and entertainment information services. It is a key player in the Chinese government'spropaganda network.[6][1]Freedom House andThe Guardian commented that CCTV's reporting about topics sensitive to the Chinese government and theChinese Communist Party (CCP) is distorted and often used as a weapon against the party's perceived enemies.[7][8]
In 1954, CCPchairmanMao Zedong put forward that China should establish its own TV station. On 5 February 1955, the central broadcasting bureau reported to theState Council and proposed the program of establishing a medium-sized television station, later on premierZhou Enlai included in China's firstfive-year plan the planned introduction of television broadcasts. In December 1957, the central broadcasting bureau sent Luo Donghe and Meng Qiyu to theSoviet Union and theGerman Democratic Republic for the inspection of their TV stations (seeTelevision in the Soviet Union andDeutscher Fernsehfunk), then the duo returned to Beijing to prepare for the establishment of the TV station.[citation needed] Said station officially signed on for the first time as Beijing Television on 1 May 1958.[citation needed]
Beijing Television was formally renamed China Central Television on 1 May 1978, and a new logo was unveiled, in time for its 20th anniversary.[9]
Until the late 1970s, CCTV held only evening broadcasts, usually closing down at midnight. During the summer and winter academic vacations, it occasionally transmitted daytime programming for students, while special daytime programs were aired during national holidays.
In 1980, CCTV experimented with news relays from local and central television studios viamicrowave.[10] It also had its first international collaboration that year, production of the documentary seriesSilk Road with Japan's public broadcasting company,NHK.[11]: 234 In 1984, CCTV established the wholly owned subsidiaryChina International Television Corporation [zh] (CITVC).[12] A one-year deal with U.S. networkCBS was signed in June 1983 to supply the network with 64 hours of shows.[13]
By 1985, CCTV had already become a leading television network in China. In 1987, CCTV grew due to the adaptation and presentation ofDream of the Red Chamber, the first Chinese television drama to enter the global market.[14]: 33 In the same year, CCTV exported 10,216 shows to 77 foreign television stations.[14]: 33
Initially, the CCP's Central Publicity Department issued directivecensorship of programs. During reform in the 1990s, it adopted new standards for CCTV, "affordability" and "acceptability", loosening the previous government control.[14]: 34 Affordability refers to purchasing ability of programs, while acceptability requires that a program has acceptable content, preventing the broadcast of material that contains inappropriate content or expresses views against the CCP.[14]: 35
In 1990, CCTV subsidiary, CITVC,[12] established China Television Corporation in California to distribute CCTV content in the U.S.[15] In 2000, CCTV's all-English channel, known as CCTV-9 or CCTV International, was launched.[16]
In 2001, the Great Foreign Publicity Plan was launched byXu Guangchun, the head of SARFT, also the deputy head of the CCP's Central Publicity Department after the urgency of bringing the voice of China to the world was presented byJiang Zemin, formerGeneral Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.[citation needed] The idea of an English channel was brought out in 1996. CCTV-4 had three half-hour English news broadcasting every day, but later, on 25 September 2000, CCTV-9 a satellite channel was set up to be the first 24-hour English channel, aimed to establish the overseas market. In October 2001, CCTV partnered with AOL Time Warner and other foreign news corporations, giving them access to the Chinese media market in exchange for cable delivery in the US and Europe, mainly delivering CCTV-9 programs.[17]
The current president of CCTV isShen Haixiong, who was appointed in February 2018, and also appointed as a deputy head of the CCP's Central Publicity Department.[25][26]
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 ("CCTV Network News" or "CCTV Tonight",Chinese:新闻联播), goes on air daily at 7:00 pm Beijing time. All local stations are required to carry CCTV's news broadcast. An internal CCTV survey indicates that nearly 500 million people countrywide regularly watch this program.[27][needs update]
Focus Report (jiaodian fangtan), first introduced in 1994, was a popular CCTV show which regularly exposes the wrongdoings of local officials, which attracts serious attention from higher levels of government. It also exposed the Chinese government's response to charges of corruption.[28] In 1998, PremierZhu Rongji praised the program as an important tool of media supervision (yulun jiandu).[29]: 59
TheCCTV New Year's Gala (Chinese:中国中央电视台春节联欢晚会)—a yearly special program for the Chinese New Year—is the most-watched CCTV show.[30]
In 2003, CCTV launched its first24-hour news channel, initially available to cable viewers.[31]
This section'sfactual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Last update: 2008(December 2022)
As of 2007[update], China's television audience rose to 1.2 billion.[32] As content becomes more diversified, there have been concerns about the audience share, as CCTV is losing out to cable, satellite and regional networks.[33] InGuangzhou for example, CCTV programming only accounts for 45% of the weekly audience share,[34] while in Shanghai, local stations also have share over CCTV.[35] However, theCCTV New Year's Gala remains extremely popular; it acquires more than 90% audience share over the nation.[31]
This section'sfactual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(April 2023)
Producing a variety of different programming, China Central Television has a number of different program hosts,news anchors, correspondents, and contributors who appear throughout daily programing on the network.[36]
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.Editorial independence is subject to government policy considerations, and as a result, its history and news channels have been charged with being "propaganda aimed at brainwashing the audience" in a 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.[37][38] The network often publishes misleading and false information, particularly as it pertains to issues considered sensitive by the Chinese government. However, only a small percentage of the Network's programming can be described as "abusive or demonizing propaganda."[39]
Journalists working for the network's English-language international channel, CGTN, as well as of the other non-Chinese language TV channels under the CGTN banner, are under constant pressure to present a positive account of China, according toAnne-Marie Brady's study published in 2008. "In August 2005, a series of items reported factually on thecoal 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."[4]
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 a broadcast. "The political controls on the station contribute to a generally low level of morale and initiative among station staff," she writes.[4]
A study done by the observer of Chinese film and television, Ying Zhu, suggests that "CCTV is full of serious-minded creators who regularly experience bouts of self-doubt, philosophical ambivalence, and in some cases,clinical depression." During her extensive interviews with key CCTV players, Zhu notes that "Certain common themes, about ideals, distorted or altogether thwarted by commercial and political pressure, emerged."[40][17]
According toFreedom House, CCTV "has a consistent record of blatantly and egregiously violating journalistic standards and encouraging or justifying hatred and violence against innocent people. CCTV is an essential component of the CCP's brutal authoritarian regime and should be treated as such."[7]
Since its inception CCTV has served as a tool of state power and as such has been complicit in human rights abuses. They have a history of demonizing and inciting hatred against those perceived as foes by the CCP, in this way they can be used to mobilize against threats as diverse as Falun Gong and international human rights groups.[7]
In 1999, during the first crackdown onFalun Gong, CCTV'sFocus Talk ran 28 episodes over a 32-day period which defamed practitioners and incited hatred against them. In 2001, they deceptively claimed that a group of people who hadset themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square were Falun Gong adherents, a claim which was characterized as "clearly abusive" by the Canadian regulatory commission.[7]
On 23 January 2011, Xinwen Lianbo showcased theChengdu J-10 firing a missile at a plane, causing it to explode. The footage lasted half a second and the destroyed plane shown was later identified as that of anF-5E, a US fighter jet. The clip was later revealed to have been taken from the 1986 US movieTop Gun.[43]
In 2011, the new CCTV head Hu Zhanfan "was found to have proclaimed in July [or January,[44] both before the CCTV appointment in November] that journalists' foremost responsibility is to 'be a good mouthpiece'"[45] Internet posts of the comment blossomed after the appointment, one "juxtapos[ing] CCTV's ...Xinwen Lianbo (新闻联播) and photos of Chinese crowds waving red flags with black-and-white images fromNazi-era Germany". Comparisons with the Nazi propaganda chiefJoseph Goebbels also spread. Official media coverage of the Zhanfan's presentation focused on his call to avoid "fake news and false reports (失实报道)" but also incorporated the "mouthpiece" comment.[44]
CCTV regularly broadcasts theforced confessions of accused or convicted criminals and produces programming to go along with them.[46] These programs are often filmed before the beginning of formal judicial procedures.[47] Domestic dissidents such as lawyers, journalists, and activists as well as foreigners have been the victim of this practice.[48][49][50]
In 2013,Peter Humphrey andCharles Xue's forced confessions were aired on CCTV.[47] Since being freed, Humphrey has been highly critical of CCTV and the practice of airing forced confessions.[51] In 2020, the British media regulatorOfcom sided with Humphrey and announced sanctions against CGTN, which aired Humphrey's confession and was branded as CCTV News at the time.[52][53]
In 2014, CCTV broadcast the forced confession of the then-septuagenarian journalistGao Yu.[48]
In 2016, Peter Dahlin andGui Minhai's forced confessions were aired on CCTV.[47] In 2019 Dahlin filed a complaint against China Global Television Network (CGTN) and China Central Television-4 (CCTV-4) with Canadian authorities.[54]
On 21 November 2019, CCTV's international arm CGTN aired a video of a forced confession from Hong Kong activistSimon Cheng. Within a week, Cheng had filed a new complaint toOfcom over the broadcast.[55]
In 2020, the forced confession of Taiwanese citizen Lee Meng-chu was aired on a CCTV program. A day later, the same program aired the forced confession of an academic from Taiwan accused of espionage and separatist activities.[56]
On 9 February 2009, theBeijing Television Cultural Center caught fire on the last day of the festivities ofChinese New Year, killing one firefighter.[57] The blaze rendered the 42-story structure unusable, as the zinc and titanium alloy of the outer skin was burnt.[57]
The fire had implications for the credibility of CCTV, which was already unpopular because of its dominance in the media.[58] The incident was mocked bynetizens who reproducedphotoshopped photos of the fire and criticized CCTV forcensoring coverage. Pictures of the fire are widely distributed on the internet, as a result ofcitizen journalism.[59]
During the2011 military intervention in Libya, reports from CCTV tended to supportMuammar Gaddafi's arguments, claiming that the coalition forces attacked Libyan civilians and the military intervention was no different from an invasion. In some of the news reports, CCTV used images of demonstrators and said that they were against NATO's military intervention. CCTV also mislabeled a person holding a banner which said "Vive la France" ("long live France" in French) and claimed that he was a supporter of Gaddafi. Later on 27 March, a Chinese banner that said "Muammar Gaddafi is a lier. [sic]" was shown in some Libyan demonstration videos on the Internet.[60]
In 2019, CCTV announced that they were cancelling the broadcast of twoNational Basketball Association preseason games in response to a tweet by the General Manager of theHouston Rockets,Daryl Morey, in support ofpro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. AfterAdam Silver defended the General Manager's right tofree speech, CCTV responded with, "We express our strong dissatisfaction and opposition to Silver's stated support of Morey's right to free speech. We believe any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability do not belong to the category of free speech," and continued, "We will also immediately examine all other cooperation and exchanges with the NBA."[61]
Censorship and disinformation about the Russian invasion of Ukraine
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^Sun, Yi (2024). "Necessitated by Geopolitics: China's Economic and Cultural Initiatives in Central Asia". In Fang, Qiang; Li, Xiaobing (eds.).China under Xi Jinping: A New Assessment.Leiden University Press.ISBN9789087284411.JSTORjj.15136086.
^Yi, Guolin (2024). "From "Seven Speak-Nots" to "Media Surnamed Party": Media in China from 2012 to 2022". In Fang, Qiang; Li, Xiaobing (eds.).China under Xi Jinping: A New Assessment.Leiden University Press.ISBN9789087284411.JSTORjj.15136086.
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