21--China'sgotviewers--Nov18th2010
-
Television
China's
got viewers
Despite government meddling
and rampant piracy, commercial television is
surging in the Middle Kingdom
Nov 18th 2010 | SHANGHAI
LAST month Liu
Wei, an armless pianist and singer, won the first
series of “China’s
Got Talent”. En
route to victory, he defeated bellydancers,
comedians and a pig
impersonator. The
talent show was a ratings triumph: a third of all
televisions in the
Shanghai area tuned
in for the final. But Yang Wenhong, vice-president
of Shanghai
Media Group, is just as
pleased that the Communist Party’s media regulator
praised
the programme for conveying an
uplifting message. In China, it is not enough
merely
to please the masses.
China’s television business
has developed largely in isolation from the rest
of the
world. Despite heroic efforts,
particularly by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation,
Western media firms have been unable to
launch mainland channels. They have been
restricted to TV sets in Hong Kong and
in expensive hotels, or reduced to selling the
odd programme to domestic networks. But
isolation does not mean Chinese
television is stagnating. On the
contrary: it is progressing at a lunatic pace.
2
Money is pouring in. Last week China
Central Television (CCTV) announced that it
had already booked 12.7 billion yuan
($$1.9 billion) of advertising for
2011
—
16%
more
than it had sold at this point last year. Total
television advertising has grown
sevenfold since 2001. It is by far the
richest medium: fully 63% of all advertising
spending in China this year will be on
television, compared with just 28% in Britain.
Andrew Carter of GroupM, the media-
investment firm which issues these estimates,
explains that television is well-suited
to bringing new products and brands to the
attention of China’s
fast
-growing middle class.
The box used to be
dominated by the state-run CCTV, which is
controlled by the
Communist Party’s
publicity department. But despite the launch of
new channels—
it
currently
has 15, including one dedicated to
opera
—
CCT
V’s
share of viewing is falling
(see
chart). Earlier this year it was overtaken by the
combined audience of provincial
broadcasters like Shanghai Media Group,
Hunan TV and Zhejiang TV, which can each
distribute one channel nationally.
These provincial outfits, which are less
controlled
by Beijing, are locked in a
fierce, untidy and occasionally underhanded
struggle for
viewers.
Not only do many of their shows
resemble British and American programmes like
“Pop Idol” and “The Apprentice”. They
also rip off each other’s formats. “If a show is
successful, clones appear almost
instantly,” says Rebecca Yang of IPCN, a firm that
brokers formats. A few years ago there
was an explosion of talent competitions. Then
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