Moscow State UniversityFaculty of JournalismMEDIA IN CHINATerm paper by English language
made by third-year student of 304 group
Basina Maria VictorovnaMoscow, 2005
CONTENT
Introduction. Chinese media andgovernment
China's media network: Xinhua andPeople’s Daily
China Youth Daily
China Youth Online
Beijing Today
Subsidiary Newspapers and Magazines
Internet
Internet censorship in China
SOHU.COM
Television
China Central Television
Talk Radio
Cable TV and satellites
The role of “internal” media
Market competition
Sources of information
INRODUCTION. CHINESE MEDIAAND GOVERNMENT
Within the People’s Republic of China there isheavy government involvement in the media, with many of the largest mediaorganizations (namely CCTV, the People’s Daily, and Xinhua) being agencies ofthe Chinese government. There are certain taboos and red lines in the Chinesemedia, such as a taboo against questioning the legitimacy of the CommunistParty of China. Yet within those restrictions, there is a vibrance anddiversity of the media and fairly open discussion of social issues and policyoptions within the parameters set by the Party.
Muchof the surprising diversity in the Chinese media is attributable to the factthat most state media outlets no longer receive large government subsidies andare expected to largely pay for themselves through commercial advertising. As aresult, they can no longer serve solely as mouthpieces for the government butmust also produce programming that people find attractive and interested sothat money can be generated through advertising revenue. In addition, while thegovernment does issue directives defining what can and cannot be published, itdoes not prevent, and in fact actively encourages state media outlets tocompete with each other for viewers and commercial advertising.
Governmentcontrol of information can also be ineffective in other ways. Despitegovernment restrictions, much information is gathered either at the local levelor from foreign sources and passed on through personal conversations and textmessaging. The withdrawal of government media subsidies has caused many newspapers(including some owned by the Communist Party) in tabloids to take boldeditorial stands critical of the government, as the necessity to attract readersand avoid bankruptcy has been a more pressing fear than government repression.
Inaddition, the traditional means of media control have proven extremely ineffectiveagainst newer forms of communication, most notably text messaging.
Althoughthe government can and does use laws against state secrets to censor pressreports about social and political conditions, these laws have not preventedthe press from all discussion of Chinese social issues. Chinese newspapers havebeen particularly affected by the loss of government subsidies, and have beenespecially active at gaining readership though must engaging in hard hitting investigativereporting and muckraking. As a result even papers which are nominally owned bythe Communist Party are sometimes very bold at reporting social issues. Howeverboth commercial pressures and government restrictions have tended to causenewspapers to focus on lurid scandals often involving local officials who haverelatively little political cover, and Chinese newspapers tend to lack in depthanalysis of political events as this tends to be more political sensitive.
Amongsocial issues first reported in the Chinese press include the AIDS epidemic in Henanprovince, the unsafe state of Chinese mines. In addition, the SARS coverup wasfirst revealed by a fax to CCTV which was forwarded to Western news media.CHINA’S MEDIA NETWORK: XINHUA ANDPEOPLE’S DAILY
Xinhua(the New China News Agency) and People's Daily, the two most important printmedia, have status as separate government ministries; their directors sit onthe party's Central Committee. Just below, hierarchically, are the two nationalnewspapers under the control of the Propaganda Department — the Guangming Dailyand the English-language China Daily. These entities have the rank of viceministries, as does the State Council-controlled Economic Daily. The NationalPropaganda Department appoints publishers, chief editors, and other keyofficials of the above-mentioned newspapers — plus a few others — whileprovincial and local party leaders make similar appointments for party papersin their jurisdictions.
Inmany ways, Xinhua is the fuel propelling China's print media. Perhaps unique inthe world because of its role, size, and reach, Xinhua reports directly to theparty's Propaganda Department; employs more than 10,000 people — as compared toabout 1,300 for the UK's Reuters, for example; has 107 bureaus worldwide bothcollecting information on other countries and dispensing information aboutChina; and maintains 31 bureaus in China — one for each province plus amilitary bureau. In as much as most of the newspapers in China cannot afford tostation correspondents abroad — or even in every Chinese province — they relyon Xinhua feeds to fill their pages. People's Daily, for example, uses Xinhuamaterial for approximately 25 percent of its stories.
Xinhuais a publisher as well as a news agency — it owns more than 20 newspapers and adozen magazines, and it prints in Chinese, English, and four other languages.
Likeother government entities, Xinhua is feeling the pinch of reduced Statefinancial subsidies. Beijing has been cutting funding to the news agency by anaverage of seven percent per year over the past three years, and State fundscurrently cover only about 40 percent of Xinhua's costs. As a result, theagency is raising revenues through involvement in public relations,construction, and information service businesses.
Inthe past, Xinhua was able to attract the top young journalists emerging fromthe universities or otherwise newly entering the field, but it can no longer doso as easily because of the appeal and resources of other newspapers andperiodicals and the greater glamour of television and radio jobs. For example,midlevel reporters for the Xinmin Evening News often are given an apartment,whereas at Xinhua and People's Daily this benefit is reserved for the mostsenior journalists.
Likemany other media organizations, Xinhua struggled to find the «rightline» to use in covering the Tiananmen Square events of April-June 1989.Although more cautious than People's Daily in its treatment of sensitive topicsduring that period — such as how to commemorate reformist Communist Partyleader Hu Yaobang's April 1989 death, the then ongoing demonstrations in Beijingand elsewhere, and basic questions of press freedom and individual rights —Xinhua gave some favorable coverage to demonstrators and intellectuals who werequestioning top party leaders. Even so, many Xinhua reporters were angry withtop editors for not going far enough and for suppressing stories about the TiananmenSquare crackdown. For several days after the violence on 4 June, almost no oneat Xinhua did any work, and journalists demonstrated inside the Agency'sBeijing compoundCHINA YOUTH DAILY
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TheChina Youth Daily is one of the most important daily official newspapers and isthe first independently operated central government news media portal in theChina. It is operated by the Communist Youth League since 1951. The chiefeditor is Li Xueqian.
ChinaYouth Daily was established in 1951, six years before the Chinese SocialistYouth League decided to change its name to Communist Youth League of China(CYL).
ChinaYouth Daily resolutely supports the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) due to itssubordination to the CYL. As the mission of CYL at the present stage is tounite and lead the young people in the country, hoping to tranfuse new blood tothe CPC and bringing about young personnel for the country, China Youth Dailyalso tries to bring news, ideas and informations through the nationwidecirculations which follow the CYL principles. Thus, China Youth Daily has infact given advantages to the CPC to project their voice to a wider public inChina. In another perspective, the content of the paper is to some extentregulated by the CPC.
AlthoughChina youth Daily is run by the CYL, it is also the first marketized officialpaper in China. The profit enables the paper to support its own running and italso welcomes individuals and companies to advertise in the paper.
Administrativestructure of China Youth Daily can be divided into two parts. First, it is theupper part and the main power of the hierarchy which includes the president andthe chief editor. Second, there are the vice president, the vice chief editorand the secretary. But like all other papers with a CPC background, China YouthDaily is ultimately directed by the Propaganda Department of the CPC. Althoughit does not mean that the Propaganda Department often affects the direction andthe content of the paper, it is authorized and has the right to do so.
Apartfrom the central hierarchy, there are six other departments which help thedaily running of the paper, they include the office, editorial board,management department, business developmental department, human resourcesdepartment and the party office. Yet, under the editorial board, managementdepartment and business developmental department, many branchs are developed tohandle the daily work.
Peopleworking for the paper are required to have a good understanding of the CPC andall the concepts involved such as Dengxaoping's theories, Communism, Socialism,etc. Most of the employees, including journalists working for the paper are themembers of the Communist Party.
Thepaper has a circulation of around 500,000 a day. As it is an integratednationwide newspaper which targets the young generation in China, it coverspolitical, social, and economic news which particularly concerns both the youngpersonnel of the country and the CPC.
Followingits goal, China Youth Daily is able to attract a primary readership amongprofessionals between the age of 21 to 48. And to maintain such readership, thepaper has established an online version of the paper in 2000, the China YouthOnline (CYOL).
Duringapproximately 3 years of establishment, CYOL has generated 31 differentchannels to increase diversity to different users. Both China Youth Daily andCYOL are now besides having the hardcore political, social and economic news,also include news for public examinations, overseas study opportunities, careerplanning, fashion, entertainment, etc.
Asit is the first marketized official newspaper in China, it welcomesadvertisements from individuals, local and foreign companies. In order tomultiply the number of advertisements, CYOL provide an easy assess to usersespecially for the users overseas.
Accordingto an official research conducted by China Youth Daily and CYOL, readers of thenewspaper and online users are within the age of 18 to 48. The majority ofreaders are of the age of 19-25 (50%)and 26-35 (32%). Around 75% of the readersare male and around only 25% of them are female. Most readers attain a tertiaryeducation background and more than 60% of them have an income of 1000RMB orless.
Althoughthe paper is circulated nationwide, it gains more popularity in the east(31%),the central part(18%) and the north(16%) comparatively to the other parts ofChina.
Twoonline versions of China Youth Daily is established since 2000. The first oneis CYOL, the Chinese version of China Youth Daily Online and Beijing Today, theEnglish of CYOL. As mentioned before, websites are established for differentreasons and needs, for examples, it is to attract and maintain readership andto make it more asseccible to foreign users.
CHINA YOUTH ONLINE
ChinaYouth Online is China's first independently operated central government newsmedia website which has started its operation since 15th February, 2000. Theportal is targeted towards the youth community in Mainland China. It offers theonline version of China Youth Daily and distributes content, souvenirs, booksand magazines published by China Youth Daily.
LikeChina Youth Daily, CYOL basically channels for education, people, military,networks, life, and service information.
Duringearly 2004, China Youth Daily together with CYOL have a daily circulation of 2million in China, CYOL has successfully created new readership and profit sinceits establishment.
BEIJING TODAY
BeijingToday is the first English newspaper of Beijing. It is supported by theInformation Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China andthe State Press and Publication Administration. It is a 16-page chromaticweekly off press in four parts: Beijing News, Beijing View, Capital Culture andCapital Service. It aims to introduce Beijing's modernization construction, newsuccess, developments, and changes made through reform and opening up in recentyears.Subsidiary Newspapers and Magazines
Fewnewspapers and magazines are produced under the leading of the China YouthDaily. These subsidiary newspapers and magazines are designed to suit the tasteof special users and to provide news for current hot topics.
Elite Reference (http://qnck.cyol.com/gb/qnck/2004-02/18/node_109.htm)
Sports Youth Weekly (http://qnty.cyol.com/gb/qnty/2003-07/29/node_111.htm)
Itcovers sports news in China and worldwide. It reports the news of many kinds ofball games (mainly soccer), the hot topics of the sports field, and providesleisure and health information.
Itsprimary readers are college students, officers and professionals, aged between18-35, who are interested in sports.
Thechief editor is Hua Xidung who is an experienced sports reporter and soccercritic.
Itis distributed on Mondays, via retail outlets and subscription.
Digital Youth
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DigitalYouth is a daily paper which concerns with IT, providing knowledge and newsabout IT (Information Technology).
Itprovides information of IT services, the activities of the IT field and the ITexperts.
Butit also concerns about youth problem and hot social issues.
Itis established for about 50 years.
Thedistribution is about 1 million, mainly in Beijing.
Itsdistribution is Beijing is around 100,000, attached in China Youth Daily, whichmainly go to the government units, education departments and the army.
Someof them can be found in news stand, and some are freely distributed to few ITcompanies etc.
Youth Times (http://www.cyol.net/gb/qnsx/2003-01/02/node_110.htm)
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YouthTimes is a leisure weekly with city youth entertainment.
«Entertainmentis a power in the new century» is what the paper believes in.
Topicsinclude visual and international news, creativity, sales, health, travel,fashion, studying abroad, tastes and home. It is distributed on Thursdays.
INTERNET
WideningChinese use of the Internet also is undercutting government efforts to controlthe flow of information. More than 90,000,000 people in China now have Internetaccess, and the figure is likely to surpass one billion within four years,according to a Chinese specialist on the subject.
Throughthe Internet, residents of China can get uncensored news from the Chinese NewsDigest, an on-line service created by Chinese volunteers in the United Statesand Australia. This service carries information on such issues as trials ofprominent dissidents, developments in Taiwan, and divisions among the party'stop leaders. A Western specialist on Internet in China has noted that aboutone-fifth of the more than 500,000 personal computers sold there in 1994 weredesignated for installation in residences, where it is especially difficult forthe State to limit Internet use.
Sincethe beginning of 1996, the State has suspended all new applications fromInternet service providers seeking to commence operations in China; moved toput all existing Internet services under the jurisdiction of the Ministry ofPosts and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Electronics Industry, and theState Education Commission; and attempted — without much success — to establishfirewalls, limit the contents of home pages, and block access to certainInternet sites through routing filters. Government officials are worried that,as the number of Chinese homes with telephone lines grows from the presentlevel of less than four percent, the State will become totally unable to monitorInternet access at residences.INTERNET CENSORSHIP IN CHINA
Thegovernment of the People's Republic of China has set up a system of Internetcensorship in mainland China. This system is not applied in Hong Kong and Macau;some Hong Kong websites are in fact blocked or filtered from within mainlandChina.
Onepart of this system is known outside mainland China as the Great Firewall ofChina (in reference both to its role as a network firewall and to the ancient GreatWall of China). The system blocks content by preventing IP addresses from beingrouted through and consists of standard firewall and proxy servers at the Internetgateways. The system also selectively engages in DNS poisoning whenparticularly objectionable sites (such as the BBC) are requested. Thegovernment does not appear to be systematically examining Internet content, asthis appears to be technically impractical.
Extentof block
Thisfirewall is largely ineffective at preventing the flow of information and israther easily circumvented by determined parties by using proxy servers outsidethe firewall. VPN and ssh connections to outside mainland China are notblocked, so circumventing all of the censorship and monitoring features of theGreat Firewall of China is trivial for those who have these secure connectionmethods available to them. For a few weeks in 2002, the Chinese governmentattempted to block Google, but this block was quickly removed, though somefeatures on Google (such as Google Cache) remain erratic.
Researchinto the Chinese Internet censorship has shown that blocked websites include:
—Websites with pornographic content
— Newsfrom many foreign sources, especially websites which include forums
—Information about Tibet independence
—Information about Falun Gong
—Some websites based in Taiwan
—Some websites based in Hong Kong, or with content about Hong Kong
—Overseas Chinese websites such as chinese-school.netfirms.com
SOHU.COM
SOHU.COM is China's premier online brand andindispensable to the daily life of millions of Chinese who use the portal fortheir e-mail, SMS messaging, news, search, browsing and shopping. As China'smost comprehensive web site, SOHU offers its users the broadest possiblechoices regarding information, commerce and community, and, equally important,how they access these products and services. Through its pioneering roll-out ofwireless products since 2000, SOHU has become a frontrunner in making the Internetubiquitously available, whether in the office, at home or on the road.
The web site's massive use base and strong brandpresence in China make SOHU.COM, a household name throughout the country, theplatform of choice for corporate clients to promote their business.
The Internet in China is an established mediumparticularly for the urban youth, who are spending more time online at theexpense of watching television, making it the most effective marketing vehiclefor companies to target this highly attractive segment in the Chinese market.
The Company is quickly realizing its goal ofbuilding a sustainable and diversified business model on two strong pillars: asteadfast home-market corporate advertising base and a massive, paying userpopulation.
With over 50 million registered users at the end ofSeptember 2002, SOHU has the largest online user base in China. It is ahousehold name among the 300 million people living in urban centers. For thesecond year in a row the Sinomonitor International survey — the largestInternet Survey in the country- ranked SOHU.COM as the most visited portal inChina.
SOHU, with its exclusive focus on the China market,is operating in a high-growth industry under compelling market conditions. TheChinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII) predicts that the Internetsector will grow to 200 million users by 2005.China's economic growth isexpected to remain robust in coming years as the country is opening up furtherunder the terms of WTO membership and preparations intensify for the 2008Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World TELEVISION
In1978, China had less than one television receiver per 100 people, and fewerthan ten million Chinese had access to a television set. Current estimatesindicate that there are now about 25 TV sets per 100 people and that roughly abillion Chinese have access to television. Similarly, in 1965 there were 12television and 93 radio stations in China; today there are approximately 700conventional television stations — plus about 3,000 cable channels — and 1,000 radiostations.China Central Television
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ChinaCentral Television or Chinese Central Television, or CCTVis the major broadcast television network in Mainland China. Organizationallyit is a subministry of the China's central government within the StateAdministrator of Radio, Television, and Film and as such it does not have anyeditorial independence from the PRC government.
Itsnews reporting follows parameters directed by the Propaganda Department of theCommunist Party of China. Most of its programming, however, is a mix of comedyand dramatic programming, the majority of which consists of Chinese soapoperas. Like many media outlets in China, CCTV has had its state subsidyreduced dramatically in the 1990s, and hence finds it necessary to balance itsrole as a government agency with the practical fact that it must attractviewers so that it can sell commercial advertising. In searching for viewers,CCTV has found itself in competition with local television stations (which arealso state run) which have been creating increasingly large media groups inorder to compete with CCTV.
CCTVfirst broadcast on September 2, 1958 under the name Beijing Television, afteran experimental broadcast on May 1. The name was changed to CCTV on May 1,1978.
CCTVhas sixteen different channels of programming content and competes withtelevision stations run by local governments (such as BTV and several regionalchannels) and foreign programming which can be readily received via satellitetelevision. Unlike US channel naming conventions, but similar to the situationin many countries in Europe, CCTV channels are listed in sequential order withno discerning descriptions, e.g. CCTV-1, CCTV-2, etc.
OutsideChina, it is only possible to receive channels CCTV-4 (overseas channel) andCCTV-9 (overseas channel targeted at an English-speaking audience) via aDigital Video Broadcast signal. CCTV has just recently switched from analog toDVB primarily due to better signal quality and the ability to charge for reception(about 10 USD per year subscription). The aforementioned overseas channels arerelayed off many different satellites around the world.
CCTVnow has 16 channels. They are:
CCTV-1 Mixture
CCTV-2 Economy
CCTV-3 Arts
CCTV-4 International channel in Chinese
CCTV-5 Sports
CCTV-6 Movie
CCTV-7 Children's/Military/Agriculture
CCTV-8 TV drama
CCTV-9 International channel in English
CCTV-10 Science and Technology
CCTV-11 Opera
CCTV-12 Society and Law
CCTV-News — 24-hour News
CCTV-Children — Children's channel
CCTV-Music — Music
CCTV-E&F — International Broadcast inSpanish and French
Televisionbroadcasting is controlled by Chinese Central Television (CCTV), the country'sonly national network. CCTV, which employs about 2,400 people, falls under thedual supervision of the Propaganda Department, responsible ultimately for mediacontent, and the Ministry of Radio, Film, and Television, which overseesoperations. A Vice Minister in the latter ministry serves as chairman of CCTV.The network's principal directors and other officers are appointed by theState. So are the top officials at local conventional television stations inChina — nearly all of which are restricted to broadcasting within their own provinceor municipality — that receive CCTV broadcasts.
CCTVproduces its own news broadcasts three times a day and is the country's mostpowerful and prolific television program producer. It also has a monopoly onpurchases of programming from overseas. All local stations are required tocarry CCTV's 7 p.m. main news broadcast; an internal CCTV survey indicates thatnearly 500 million people countrywide regularly watch this program.TALK RADIO
Talkradio in China allows a much freer exchange of views than other media formats.In effect, talk radio has shifted the paradigm from authorities addressing thepeople to people addressing the authorities. For example, until 1991 the 14million inhabitants of Shanghai were served by only one radio station — RadioShanghai — which primarily aired predictable, pro-government propaganda. In1992, East Radio was established with a format that catered to citizens'individual concerns and deemphasized propaganda. Competition between the twoShanghai radio stations has resulted in much livelier coverage by both —including call-in programs that air discussions of politics, lifestyle, andpreviously forbidden social subjects. Because callers usually are not requiredto identify themselves, such discussions are far more candid than would bepossible on television. Party officials regularly give guidance to the hostsand producers of talk-radio programs, but such guidance is usually ignoredwithout penalty because party officials do not want to create problems bymoving against these highly popular programs.CABLE TV AND SATELLITES
Residentsof the Chinese mainland now receive more than 20 outside television channels bysatellite, including Chinese-language services of CNN, Star TV, and the UnitedStates Information Agency. In the southern province of Guangdong, 97 percent ofthe households have television sets, and all — except those in a few parts ofthe city of Guangzhou where reception is poor — have access to Hong Kongtelevision through cable networks. Some local stations even intercept thesignals and insert their own commercials. Beijing is unable to effectivelymonitor, let alone control, the illicit cable operators who have sprung upsince the early 1990s. As of 1995, about 1,000 of the 3,000 cable stations inChina, linked to perhaps 50 million homes, were unlicensed.
Satellitedishes in mainland China that pull in programs from Hong Kong, Taiwan, andother places are regulated, but government entities such as the Ministry ofMachinery Industry and the military services produce such dishes outsideallowable quotas and guidelines and then sell them illicitly to eagercustomers. Efforts by the Ministry of Radio, Film, and Television to halt thispractice have been ineffective, mostly because of the large profits involved —up to 50 percent per dish. Indeed, the government has backtracked in itsefforts to stop these practices — moving from an outright ban on satellitedishes (1993), to requiring that they be licensed (1994), to specifyingallowable programs and viewing hours (1995).
THE ROLE OF “INTERNAL” MEDIA
TheChinese media's internal publication system, in which certain journals arepublished exclusively for government and party officials, provides informationand analysis not generally available to the public. The State values theseinternal reports because they contain much of China's most sensitive,controversial, and high-quality investigative journalism.
Xinhuaand many other Chinese media organizations produce reports for the«internal» journals. Informed observers note that journalistsgenerally like to write for the internal publications — typically, only themost senior or most capable print and broadcast reporters are given suchopportunities — because they can write less polemical and more comprehensivestories without having to omit unwelcome details as is commonly done in theprint media directed to the general public. A Chinese historian has noted, asan example of such self-censorship, that only a minority of China's populationare aware 30 million people starved to death in the early 1960s, because theParty has never allowed the subject to be openly explored in the media.
TheChinese Government's internal media publication system follows a stricthierarchical pattern designed to facilitate party control. A publication calledReference Information (Cankao Ziliao) — which includes translated articles fromabroad as well as news and commentary by senior Xinhua reporters — is deliveredby Xinhua personnel, rather than by the national mail system, to officials atthe working level and above. A three-to-ten-page report called InternalReference (Neibu Cankao) is distributed to officials at the ministerial leveland higher. The most highly classified Xinhua internal reports, known as«redhead reference» (Hong Tou Cankao) reports, are issuedoccasionally to the top dozen or so party and government officials.
Thereare signs the internal publication system is breaking down as more informationbecomes widely available in China. A Hong Kong-based political journalcirculated on the Chinese mainland has questioned the need for such a system inlight of China's modern telecommunications and expanding contacts with theoutside world. Internal publications are becoming less exclusive; some are nowbeing sold illegally on the street and are increasingly available to anyonewith money.
Someof the internal publications have changed substantially in an effort to avoidbecoming obsolete. For example, the publication News Front — started in 1957 asa weekly tool for the Communist Party to instruct journalists on what to write— no longer was limited to that function when it reappeared after the CulturalRevolution. It continued to change gradually and is now a monthly publicationthat serves as a professional rather than political guide for journalists.MARKET COMPETITION
Intensecompetition for the media market is among the most important factors behind theemergence of more diverse and autonomous media in China. As indicated earlierin this study, efforts by the Chinese media to respond to an increasinglydemanding print and broadcast market have created an expanding spectrum ofmedia products ranging from serious news journalism to purely entertainmentstories. Monetary rewards for meeting such demands continue to grow, resultingin greater financial autonomy for Commercialization thus has been a majorliberating force for the media in China. The regime is far less able thanbefore to wield financial leverage over the media, which have increasinglybecome self-supporting through advertising revenues and circulation. Accordingto one estimate, advertising in all media forms increased 35-fold between 1981and 1992. Print ad revenues jumped ten times between 1990 and 1995 — from 1.5billion yuan to 15 billion yuan.
Televisionrevenues also are growing dramatically: they totaled about $2 billion in 1995and are expected to rise above $6 billion by 2005. In 1995, China CentralTelevision earned nearly $150 million in advertising revenue, covering almost90 percent of its total costs. In the past, Chinese radio and television tendedto run well behind the print press in their news coverage. More recently,television has come under market pressure to be as timely, informative, andresponsive as the print media.
Competitionfrom outside mainland China has further impelled domestic media organizationsto become more diverse, assertive, and skeptical of official authority. For example,in order to compete against higher quality Hong Kong radio stations that couldbe heard in Guangdong Province, Guangdong radio managers created Pearl RiverEconomic Radio (PRER) in 1986. PRER, copying Hong Kong radio's approach, beganto emphasize daily life, entertainment, «celebrity» deejays, andcaller phone-in segments, while eliminating ideological, preachy formats thatincluded little information beyond what was provided by government sources. By1987, PRER had obtained 55 percent of the Guangdong market; previously, HongKong radio stations had held 90 percent of this market. Local party cadre insouthern China reportedly are unhappy about PRER, mainly because some of thestation's commentators, as well as its talk radio programs, highlight partyfailures and the misdeeds of individual party members in the region.
Thetop national Chinese Communist Party papers (People's Daily, Guangming Daily,and Economic Daily) — which mostly feature party speeches, announcements,propaganda, and policy viewpoints — are steadily losing circulation andmuch-sought advertising revenues to evening municipal papers that have far morediverse content. For example, People's Daily's circulation fell from 3.1million copies a day in 1990 to 2.2 million in 1995; the paper's 1994advertising revenues were down as well. Moreover, its subscriptions consistoverwhelmingly of mandatory ones by party and government organizations.Similarly, the Liberation Army Daily has become almost entirely dependent onState subsidies. Its circulation has fallen from 1.7 million in 1981 to fewerthan 500,000 at present.
Bycontrast, the circulation of the Xinmin Evening News, operated by the ShanghaiMunicipal Government, has risen from 1.3 million to 1.7 million over the sametime period. The Guangzhou Daily, owned by the Guangzhou Municipal Government,doubled its circulation in six years to 600,000 in 1994, and its ad revenuesalso were up.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
1. en.wikipedia.org/
2. www.xinhua.com/
3. sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/
4. www.syol.ynet.com/
5. http:// www.sohu.com/
6. web.info.com/
7. www.chinaview.cn
8. www.chinanews.com