China Bans Foreign Shows From Prime Time Television Slots

China’s television broadcasting regulator, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has banned their local TV channels from broadcasting foreign-made shows during the prime time slot of 1930-2200hrs every day, ”, said the China Daily on Tuesday. in order to “improve the quality of imported TV programmes.”

China’s television broadcasting regulator, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has banned their local TV channels from broadcasting foreign-made shows during the prime time slot of 1930-2200hrs every day, ”, said the China Daily on Tuesday. in order to “improve the quality of imported TV programmes.”

The new rules also called for no more than 25 percent of programming each day to come from foreign sources – with the bulk of the television shows presently being broadcasted in China coming from its Asian neighbours such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand. Western shows already receive very little airplay on Chinese TV stations, though pirated versions are widely available online.

“If there’s no rule against taking shows from abroad, then TV stations will only broadcast foreign shows,” said Yuan Fang, a professor in the advertising department of the Communication University of China, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times.

Professor Peng Jixiang, from Peking University’s School of Arts, added that the SARFT rules would enable the country to protect its domestic cultural products and help create a favourable environment for locally made television programmes.

Still, most other analysts see the move as another covert attempt by the Chinese government to control its national culture.

In an essay published last month in the Communist Party’s official magazine, Seeking Truth, Chinese president Hu Jintao had called for an increased government control of China’s culture, particularly in television, film and the performing arts, due to “hostile foreign powers” that were attempting to infiltrate China’s “ideological and cultural sphere.”

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The SARFT has also pulled popular television shows such as Super Girl and If You Are The One from television due to their supposed negative values. Often these shows are replaced with news programmes or documentaries that celebrate the Communist Party’s history.

Consequently, younger Chinese viewers are now turning towards Internet-based entertainment, which are generally harder for the government to control.

“Banning time travel and then dating shows and then imported shows…the agency must want us all to go to bed early,” complained one Chinese individual to the New York Times.

[quote]“They should really put the SARFT in charge of food safety and have the State Food and Drug Administration regulate TV shows. That way we’ll have safe food and good entertainment,” opined another local sarcastically.[/quote]

According to Jeremy Goldkorn, a China media analyst and founder of the online magazine Danwei.com, the new regulations were also unlikely to affect the majority of Chinese television viewers who were Internet-savvy, particularly as their viewing habits no longer revolved around a television set.

 “It’s not going to affect the hundreds of millions of people who just turn on the TV and leave it on all day,” he said.