China: TV or propaganda?
Just how fine the line is between information and propaganda is the topic of Roland Berger Partner Tom Ramoser's commentary on recent changes in the Chinese media landscape.
"Every sha-la-la-la, every wo-o-wo-o, still shines..." parrots a neat little 13-year-old girl, Li Hong, on prime time TV. Her rendition of the Carpenter's evergreen from yesteryear is a contribution to the weekly talent show on China's CCTV channel one. On the very next channel, there's a highly-decorated army general singing a duet with a stout lady introduced as a dumpling cook from Beijing's weekly market. Both sing a song from the founding of the People's Republic with such devotion that tears of joy can be seen rolling down the cheeks of some in the studio audience. We zap further on through soap opera clones, quizzes and all to familiar dating shows. Up in the high of China's hundreds of channels, we find hopelessly outdated movie adaptations of Chinese legends in constant re-runs, alternating with Charlie Chaplin slapsticks…
The Chinese seem to love the gentle, soft and familiar, so it appears, they are nostalgic and quite happy to be amused to death by trifles. That, at least, is the way the government's media controllers would like things to be. The state watchdogs are alert to everything that is broadcast in China. After all, around 350 million households now have a TV set in China. At least statistically speaking, the networks can reach everyone in a population of 1.3 billion - a crucial factor in securing the government's authority. But more and more viewers are fed up with the endlessly recycled stuffy old programs, and stirrings of discontent can be heard in China's living rooms.
"Every sha-la-la-la, every wo-o-wo-o, still shines..." parrots a neat little 13-year-old girl, Li Hong, on prime time TV. Her rendition of the Carpenter's evergreen from yesteryear is a contribution to the weekly talent show on China's CCTV channel one. On the very next channel, there's a highly-decorated army general singing a duet with a stout lady introduced as a dumpling cook from Beijing's weekly market. Both sing a song from the founding of the People's Republic with such devotion that tears of joy can be seen rolling down the cheeks of some in the studio audience. We zap further on through soap opera clones, quizzes and all to familiar dating shows. Up in the high of China's hundreds of channels, we find hopelessly outdated movie adaptations of Chinese legends in constant re-runs, alternating with Charlie Chaplin slapsticks…
The Chinese seem to love the gentle, soft and familiar, so it appears, they are nostalgic and quite happy to be amused to death by trifles. That, at least, is the way the government's media controllers would like things to be. The state watchdogs are alert to everything that is broadcast in China. After all, around 350 million households now have a TV set in China. At least statistically speaking, the networks can reach everyone in a population of 1.3 billion - a crucial factor in securing the government's authority. But more and more viewers are fed up with the endlessly recycled stuffy old programs, and stirrings of discontent can be heard in China's living rooms.
Tom Ramoser
The generous practice of the central government with subsidies for media development and modernization - in combination with the provinces' and metropolitan centers' healthy sense of local patriotism - have led to an incredible explosion of infrastructure and bureaucracy across the entire media landscape. Just ten years ago, there were a few dozen television stations. Households had, on average, a choice of 2.4 channels. This has mushroomed to date into well over 300 stations with 3,000 channels. This proliferation is wreaking media and economic havoc. Experts estimate that the Chinese broadcasting industry can currently produce at best half of its programming needs …
Faced with this predicament, the government has very reluctantly switched to Plan B: As in other industries before it, the media sector is to be consolidated through commercial competition. In fact, the broadcasters are already enjoying a steep rise in advertising revenues. At the last count, these totaled USD 25 billion in the last 12 months. The plan is to gradually phase out subsidies as more and more advertising money comes in and thus to increase the economic pressure on the broadcasters …
Senior Chinese politicians are seeing BBC and CNN and are keen to replicate their success. They want to turn their own media into a flourishing industry as well. As always when grand visions meets the hard Chinese reality, the government seeks to import Western know-how and technology in return for limited market access. The formula it applies is well-known: Open the door just enough to keep the foreigners interested. Nowhere has this principle been more stringently applied than in the media. Time Warner, Viacom and Sony can all swap horror stories of disappointment and failed cooperation...
Faced with this predicament, the government has very reluctantly switched to Plan B: As in other industries before it, the media sector is to be consolidated through commercial competition. In fact, the broadcasters are already enjoying a steep rise in advertising revenues. At the last count, these totaled USD 25 billion in the last 12 months. The plan is to gradually phase out subsidies as more and more advertising money comes in and thus to increase the economic pressure on the broadcasters …
Senior Chinese politicians are seeing BBC and CNN and are keen to replicate their success. They want to turn their own media into a flourishing industry as well. As always when grand visions meets the hard Chinese reality, the government seeks to import Western know-how and technology in return for limited market access. The formula it applies is well-known: Open the door just enough to keep the foreigners interested. Nowhere has this principle been more stringently applied than in the media. Time Warner, Viacom and Sony can all swap horror stories of disappointment and failed cooperation...
Look what else we've got...
To get things moving, the government issued new rules for foreign investors a few months ago. Companies from abroad can now own up to 49% of a broadcaster in China. And they only have to devote two thirds of output to "Chinese themes," but are still not permitted to broadcast news.
The new policy is already bearing fruit. Take Jack Pan, the latest star in the Chinese media firmament. He stands for a new generation of entertainers. Fronting his weekly "Talkshow 21@21," he interviews international superstars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nicole Kidman, Madeleine Albright and Yoko Ono. Jack Pan presents the nation's viewers with an intercultural discussion of the world's problems and shows the human side of success and failure. He thus offers the upwardly mobile urban middle classes strategies for their personal advancement.
Jack Pan once pursued a model career in the state sector - rising rapidly from a simple engineer to the second highest and youngest propaganda officer in China's Ministry of Construction. In the late 1980s, however, he suddenly dropped out and went abroad. After working as a dishwasher in New York, jewelry salesman in Germany and sales manager for Audi back in China, he got into television. Ever since he's been working tirelessly on his program concept. His commitment to television is total. Jack Pan is blessed with the gift of the gab, a Midas touch and, indispensably, a strong partner. The man who sees himself as a future Larry King now heads the evening ratings for Shanghai's Dragon TV...
The new policy is already bearing fruit. Take Jack Pan, the latest star in the Chinese media firmament. He stands for a new generation of entertainers. Fronting his weekly "Talkshow 21@21," he interviews international superstars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nicole Kidman, Madeleine Albright and Yoko Ono. Jack Pan presents the nation's viewers with an intercultural discussion of the world's problems and shows the human side of success and failure. He thus offers the upwardly mobile urban middle classes strategies for their personal advancement.
Jack Pan once pursued a model career in the state sector - rising rapidly from a simple engineer to the second highest and youngest propaganda officer in China's Ministry of Construction. In the late 1980s, however, he suddenly dropped out and went abroad. After working as a dishwasher in New York, jewelry salesman in Germany and sales manager for Audi back in China, he got into television. Ever since he's been working tirelessly on his program concept. His commitment to television is total. Jack Pan is blessed with the gift of the gab, a Midas touch and, indispensably, a strong partner. The man who sees himself as a future Larry King now heads the evening ratings for Shanghai's Dragon TV...
Unlike his paragon in the US, however, Jack Pan's shows don't go out live. Every interview and interviewee is subject to a drawn-out, nerve-wracking approval process. Only then can the show go ahead. Once cleared, it is produced abroad, reviewed once again by the Chinese authorities, and finally put on air. All this pushes up the costs. That's why the great ratings only translate into modest profits.
Jack Pan and his ilk are making life increasingly difficult for the government's controllers. As advertising revenues increasingly replace subsidies, programming is shaped less by political directives and more by audience ratings. And as someone who ought to know, Jack Pan concludes, "Propaganda kills the quota."
If you have any comments or questions regarding this or any other story, please feel free to contact us:
Jack Pan and his ilk are making life increasingly difficult for the government's controllers. As advertising revenues increasingly replace subsidies, programming is shaped less by political directives and more by audience ratings. And as someone who ought to know, Jack Pan concludes, "Propaganda kills the quota."
If you have any comments or questions regarding this or any other story, please feel free to contact us:
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