Chapter IV
Television: China's Window on the World
"Without television you are blind and deaf. You don't know anything."
-- 53-year-old male food supply worker for military unit, Shanghai
"Since television they can't fool us anymore."
-- 24-year-old Beijing college student (83)
"In our daily lives we just go to work and come home, so we want to see something that is different from our own life. TV gives us a model of the rest of the world."
-- 58-year-old male accountant, Shanghai (84)
Throughout the world, no other mass medium has proved as broadly influential as television. As of 1990, 3.5 billion hours of television was watched daily. (85) It has succeeded in penetrating daily human life and society more than any other cultural or technical innovation. In terms of scope, appeal, and audience involvement, the impact of television is thus far without parallel. It is the dominant mass medium, and the definitive popular culture of the second half of the twentieth century. Since the 1950s in America, television has been the medium of the public discourse through which society is defined and defines itself. Since then, the same process of television being integrated as a vital part of household life and national common identity have been repeated to various degrees in most countries in every continent, and the 1980s brought the inundation of television to China.
The source of television's broad appeal and the nature its social and political ramifications have been the subject of extensive public, political, and academic debate. It is unquestionably a very powerful medium, and its potential to influence viewers through messages both blatant and subtle, deliberate and unintended has been shown in countless examples. Television has been heralded for building national unity, as a source of political mobilization, and as a universal way to brighten daily life a little bit. It has also been denounced for "dumbing down" the public, or for such crimes as promoting sex and violence.
Television can be educational in terms of its ability to portray to the viewer things that they could otherwise not experience. It is not merely a commercial tool but an instrument for enhancing reality. An old man who has never in his life left his small village can see far away places ranging from New York to Venice to Pretoria. Psychologically, it provides an expanded if somewhat skewed perception of reality. One writer observed,
It is striking; the same things, people, relations and situations which are regarded at the denotative level as unrealistic, and unreal, are at the connotative level apparently not seen at all as unreal, but in fact as 'recognizable'. (86)
With its perceived dual potential for both positive and negative influence, television has posed a tremendous challenge for governments of all types, and particularly for unpopular or repressive governments. As George Questor (1990) explained,
[I]ncumbent government will quite naturally feel some concern about what this new television medium does to politics and to their chances of remaining in power; even more important, these governments will need to be concerned about what this does to culture, education, families--indeed, every aspect of life. (87)
Television can indeed be a powerful political medium, and the advent and universalization of television in a society can dramatically alter the balance of power and perception between rival entities. The enhanced pace of image multiplication that results from television has transformed the modern era into the age of images. In the United States in the 1960's, television was the primary tool of protest movements. Peace demonstrators marching on the Democratic convention in Chicago carried signs declaring that, "The Whole World is Watching." Civil Rights activists likewise realized that their actions would not be validified by the public unless broadcast on television. Without television coverage, their actions would not be registered let alone remembered by the public. If it was not on TV, it did not happen. By the late 1980's, television had evolved in China to the same extent, as evidenced by its role in the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations.
Television was first broadcast in China in September 1958, in Beijing. By 1960, less than a dozen Chinese cities had television stations, which only broadcast locally, and content and technology alike were severely limited. The souring of Sino-Soviet relations in 1960 left China without a reliable source for imported technology, and the barely established Chinese telecommunications stagnated. Television in China further suffered during the Cultural Revolution, as equipment deteriorated from disuse or misuse, and content was limited to revolutionary operas and news programs consisting almost solely of rolling captions of Mao's quotes with background music of 'The East is Red'. (88)
In the early 1970s, China nevertheless made progress in developing a broadcast technology infrastructure. In 1970, China had 30 urban television stations; the number of stations grew to 47 by 1975. More importantly, in 1971, lines were constructed to allow China's major station, Beijing TV, to be broadcast directly to the entire country, rather than through mailing videocassettes to local stations, as it had previously done. In 1976, Beijing TV began including international news in its broadcasts, and in 1978, it was transformed into China Central Television, CCTV, with three channels and jurisdiction over most aspects of television broadcast in China. (89)
The evolution of broadcast in China was, however, of little significance at the time. Private television ownership was limited to the privileged few, such as high-level party officials. A few work units had access to television sets, but quality of the set and the programming was limited. Television sets were priced beyond the means of the average families, and, without special connections, were difficult to buy for the few that could afford them. As detailed in Chapter Three, the economic reforms of the late 1970s and early 1980s transformed the income and consumption patterns of the Chinese populace, and television sets became increasingly affordable and accessible.
The national network of CCTV, created in the 1970s out of the centralized Beijing Television, was designed by the government to contribute to national unity, popularize its policies, and motivate the public through news, official decrees, entertainment deemed culturally appropriate, and use of standard Mandarin. (90) Or, in the words of the Communist Party Central Committee, to "agitate and educate the whole Party, the whole army, and the people of all nationalities in the country to contribute to the socialist construction and to build socialist spiritual and material civilizations." (91)
With over a thousand employees as of 1989, CCTV also forms the backbone of the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television of China, which oversees the elaborate bureaucracy that ensures full state control over all television shows that are produced or broadcast in China. The other two major branches are the Central People's Broadcasting Station (CPBS) and Radio Beijing. The Ministry of Radio, Film, and Television is directly under the authority of the State Council, and closely associated with the Propaganda Department of the Party's Central Committee.
CCTV is horizontally divided into four departments: the administrative, editorial news, technical, and logistic sections. The administrative department consists of the Office of the Party Committee, Office of Directors, Personnel Department, and office of Foreign Affairs. The first are responsible for interpreting and implementing directives from the state regarding broadcast policy and tone, although they exercise little direct control over the production of specific programs. The Personnel Department controls appointments, dismissals, and promotions, as well as the assignment of duties and, with orders from above, the appointments of heads of departments in other sections. The Office of Foreign Affairs handles the exchange of material with television stations in other countries and represents CCTV abroad.
The Editorial and News Section is comprised of the General Editorial Office, which oversees production and material content of the shows produced by the seven production departments, the News Department, Special Features Department, Department of Art and Literature, Department of International Affairs, Department of Television Education, Department of Military Affairs, and the Office of Television Weekly. The Technical Section manages technical staff for program production, which employs about 40 percent of the CCTV staff in activities such as videotaping, sound production, film developing, and lighting. Lastly, the Logistics Section accounts for all the miscellaneous departments. (92)
This elaborate structure allows CCTV to fill three channels, mainly with original shows that it produces. Channel 2, with general news and programming, is broadcast throughout the country, and much of its material is rebroadcast by local stations. Channel 8 is broadcast only to the Beijing municipality, with a relatively wide variety of programming, including series, films, dramas, variety shows, sports, and the official "Evening News". CCTV also broadcasts an educational station, the Central Broadcasting and Television University. (93)
The content of Chinese television programming has in recent years become remarkably varied. When the boom of television ownership first began, however, CCTV featured little except for uncontroversial news programs and dryly informational shows. As television became less of a novelty, public expectations for the quality, subject matter, and volume of shows rose. When China began importing Western programs, Chinese shows suffered from the comparison. The following are comments made by Chinese interviewees in Lull (1991).
The content of television should be more open. It's not dangerous to show hugs and kisses. We see this sometimes in foreign programs, but not in Chinese dramas. Why?
We just bought a new color TV but the programs aren't very good.
Chinese television programs cannot reach a high level of art but they don't entertain the ordinary people either.
Our dramas are so predictable. The stories always fit the same pattern and aren't any fund to watch.
TV was fresh before, but not now, especially for the young generation. The shows are boring. Chinese TV has not improved over the years.
The programs are not very good. After you watch them you have no special feeling, no impression, you just forget it, it's finished. Some parts should be exciting but they are not. We must improve the quality of TV content. (94)
Television programming, particularly in the early 1980's, greatly resembled the material broadcast on CPBS. It was mainly comprised of news, features, educational and cultural programs. The most watched news program was and remains the CCTV production, "Evening News," which is simultaneously broadcast by most local stations so that it faces little or no competition in its time slot. "Evening News" includes stories about national and local events, economic news, and a limited number of political occurrences. It is one of the primary formats for publicly announcing Party policy and positions, and often includes follow-up propaganda stories on the tremendous success of said policies. "Evening News" also shows an array of cheerful and broadly positive human interest segments. After 1980, "Evening News" began including a ten minute update on current international news, taken directly off satellite. A number of viewers have described the international segment as their favorite part of the news, not for the information but for the chance to see what other countries look like. "Evening News" is watched by an estimated 90 percent of Chinese television viewers. (95)
In accordance with Party admonitions that broadcast should be used to enhance "spiritual civilization," the other types of shows all attempted to be informative and educational. Shows designed purely for entertainment were rare, as a sampling of shows from Channel 8 in the mid-1980's illustrates. Shows such as "Cultural Life" offered informative segments on the background and production of the arts, in the areas of theater, literature, cinema, music, dancing art, calligraphy, and photography. "Land of Beauty" took viewers traveling throughout China, mainly featuring natural wonders and ancient ruins. "Our Glorious History" detailed Chinese history, or at least the Communist Party version of it. Another informational show was the self-explanatory "Advice on Everyday Living." The most popular of this type of show was called "Around the World," which featured a different country or city in each episode. It included segments on agroindustrial complexes in Yugoslavia, new types of hospitals in West Berlin, the Sydney music center, and offshore oil drilling in Mexico. (96)
Chinese television content evolved slowly, but shows had begun to diversify by the middle to late 1980's. Traditional opera, popular with older audiences, was broadcast from the early part of the decade. After the ban on it was lifted, Revolutionary Opera was added to programming. Feature films, drams, plays, variety shows, cartoons and sports broadcasts. With the rising availability of foreign sports programs, Western sports have become very popular, and NBA games remain a favorite of young men. Cartoons and other children's shows also appeared. With the development of state sanctioned popular music, song and dance performances and competitions became television fixtures.
Dramatic programs, despite their overwhelming popularity with the viewing public, were initially rare. The number of dramas and "television plays" has increased slowly, although Chinese drama remains in its infancy. Most dramas are in the form of television films, which are shown in a single installment. Television films typically attempt to resemble feature films in content and style, and thus tend to be relatively expensive to produce. A single production can significantly deplete a studio's budget, which largely accounts why studios typically only release a handful of dramas each year. Prior to Kewang, discussed below, he serials produced were largely mini-series comprised of around five installments. Although further development of dramatic films and serials has become a priority in recent years, the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television continues to emphasize that dramas should focus on "spreading culture and developing the national spirit" rather than on entertainment. According to Zhang Xuecun, manager of the Shanghai Cultural Development Company,
Television workers should attach great importance to social responsibility and have a sense of historical mission. And as TV programs are a type of spiritual product, they should take the audiences feelings and response as a top criteria. (97)
Children's programming was even slower to evolve. Particularly with animated features, shows aimed at young audiences were expensive to produce and yielded relatively low returns. The demand for children's entertainment remained nevertheless high, and bookstores were flooded with Japanese manga and American comic books. In 1996, during the 5 PM hour of children's programming, 80 to 90 percent of the cartoons broadcast were foreign. In the early 1990's, China first started producing comic books for children. According to officials, Chinese comic books drew upon ancient artistic traditions. Comics such as China's 5,000 Years of History had educational value, and Clever Kid taught the values of creative problem solving along with lessons in topics such as history and astronomy. Not surprisingly, domestically produced comic books failed to tempt children away from foreign comics. Rather than acknowledging the relatively low entertainment value of Chinese comics, officials blamed the preferences on the foreign comics' ability to "cultivate a habit" in children. In 1996, China broadcast its first animated series, Panda Jingjing, which like domestic comic books met with a lukewarm reaction. (98)
The first foreign program to be shown on Chinese television was the American show Man from Atlantis in 1979. Since then, foreign shows have appeared sporadically on programming schedules. Some imported programs, such as language instruction shows and an American business program called "Global View," have been actively promoted by the government. However, the vast majority of foreign programming has resulted from barter agreements between Chinese television stations and foreign corporations trading commercial air time on Chinese stations for broadcast rights to foreign shows. The first of these was in 1982 with CBS, giving CCTV rights to such American shows as an animated Dr. Seuss special, Sixty Minutes, National Basketball Association games, and the Tournament of Roses Parade to CCTV. (99)
Another agreement signed with Twentieth Century Fox allowed CCTV to choose 52 feature films from the Fox archives of over 3,000 titles. Prior to 1995, when China began regularly importing foreign films to be shown in theaters, television arrangements such as this provided the sole access to American movies. MCA/Paramount/MGM provided 100 hours of programs such as Star Trek. CCTV also signed an agreement with ESPN to broadcast American and international sporting events. Regional and city stations have also imported shows independent of CCTV. In 1986, Shanghai Television (STV) and Lorimar Productions signed a five-year agreement that brought over 7,500 hours of famous American shows to Chinese television. The shows from Lorimar included Falcon Crest, Knot's Landing, Hunter, Alf, Perfect Strangers, Valerie, and animated shows Thundercats and Silverhawks. (100)
A 1986 agreement with Walt Disney Productions allowed CCTV to import the cartoon Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, which quickly became a favorite among children's programming. Mickey Mouse, however, managed to prove controversial. Some of the humor in the show was interpreted by the Chinese audience or censors as offensive. Meanwhile, several companies in China began to use images of the Disney characters to promote their own products, and pirating of these images continues today. Although a truce was reached with an agreement to allow the marketing of Disney memorabilia and the creation of a Chinese Mickey Mouse club, conflicts between the Chinese government and Disney over pirating and politics continue. (101)
Despite the availability of foreign programs and positive viewer responses, the Party remains uncomfortable with imported shows. Foreign series and movies on CCTV and other major stations are by law not allowed exceed 8 percent of total programming. (102) Much of the official concern stems from issues of program content, since most foreign shows depict sex and violence much more graphically than the levels considered appropriate. Officials have commented on the need to carefully supervise and censor imported shows in order to weed out potentially dangerous shows. CCTV Production Director Wang Chuanyu emphasized the need to show only appropriate programs.
The Open Door policy gives us the chance to import good programs from foreign countries. We are interested in having programs that can have a positive cultural or artistic impact in China. (103)
These sentiments were echoed by Pan Huiming, the Deputy Director of the Guangdong Province Television station.
We are selective about what programs we import. We are not going to pick up programs that are too violent, too sexual or too religious. (104)
Much of the government concern, however, stemmed from the ideological contradictions of importing television shows. Extensive reliance on or public interest in foreign shows indicated that domestic programming was somehow not meeting the needs and expectations of Chinese viewers. This could genuinely be attributed the fact that Chinese television production is in its infancy. The total annual expenditure on program development and production, administration, and infrastructure maintenance equals $2.20 US for each set in the country. (105) However, the deficiencies in Chinese television programs taps into a deeply held national insecurity. It plays into fears of cultural inferiority and the threat of cultural imperialism. Such implications are particularly upsetting to the government, as it suggests that the Party has failed to protect China from foreign cultural incursion. Foreign programs were thus among the most harshly targeted cultural products in the 1983 and 1987 campaigns.
Television advertising, and indeed advertising in general, provided yet another ideological dilemma for the Communist reformers. During the Maoist era, commercial advertising had been labeled a wasteful application of resources that could be better utilized for production, and thus it was banned. In January 1979, however, an editorial written by Ding Yunpeng appeared in the Shanghai paper Wenhuibao calling for the development of an advertising ethic that was informative rather than exploitative and that helped the people to appreciate "the socialist economy and culture." Ding gave examples of positive advertising such as the warning labels on American cigarette boxes and safe driving admonitions in car commercials. (106)
The Ding Yunpeng article was the first of a flood of similar essays in official publications which desperately sought to justify the need for commercials and to explain how advertising and socialism were actually not contradictory. The Party argument was essentially economic. Advertising could serve as a form of communication between producers and consumers. It could eliminate waste by disseminating information regarding surpluses and shortages, thus coordinating supply and demand. If consumers were informed regarding which goods were available at which locations, shopping would be made less difficult and long lines at stores would be eliminated. Advertising by foreign companies also could provide a much needed source of foreign currency. On the other hand, the predominance of foreign advertising was highly controversial, and it was a target during the 1983 campaign against spiritual pollution. (107)
CCTV first began showing commercials in 1979. (108) These early Chinese commercials were simple and primitive, consisting of an announcement with the name of the product and where it could be purchased. The more elaborate early advertisements included a still photograph of the product and background music. (109) Chinese advertising has come a long way since, and much of the progress has been a result of competition from foreign advertisers wishing to reach the world's largest television audience. The first foreign commercials were broadcast in 1982, as part of the trade between CCTV and CBS. In 1987, MGM/UA, Paramount Pictures, and Universal Studios established a joint venture to trade programming for Chinese air time. (110)
The Chinese advertising industry developed primarily to accommodate the foreign companies that have continued to dominate advertising in China. Shanghai University professor Fang Zhenxing observed in 1987 that most Chinese firms continued to view advertising as a superfluous expenditure, and thus were losing publicity opportunities and markets to foreign competitors. Advertising was unquestionably a growth industry by the mid-1980's, and officials citing comparisons to quantity and technological sophistication of American advertising called for its continued expansion. By 1987, the advertising industry employed over 70,000 people in upwards of 600 advertising agencies. Most of these, however, were intermediary organizations, and an estimated 28 percent of advertising expenditures in China went to unnecessary facilitators. This added to critiques that many domestic advertisements were inaccurate, and some even ran promotions for products that had not yet been developed. (111)
Present day advertising in China has reached a level that could easily rival American advertisement in both scope and technical accomplishment. Advertising is amusingly ubiquitous in urban China. Tickets to tourist sights have ads printed on the back. Every store has colorful cardboard cut-outs or other displays in the window. Bridges, fences, walls, and highway overpasses are draped with large nylon character banners: some with the requisite admonitions to "build spiritual civilization" and the like, but most with admonitions to buy the newest washing machine or toothpaste. Even on the Beijing subway, the plastic loops that standing passengers hold onto for balance are attached to the frame with colorful boxes announcing some product or the other. The products advertised range from bottled water, medicine, and toothpaste to hair care products, home appliances, and Coca-Cola. Chinese consumerism has in a large part developed through the use of extensive television advertisement to promote and popularize products such as pagers, cellular phones, stereos, and new television sets.
While Chinese television advertisements can still be distinguished from foreign and Hong Kong-produced spots, the differences are quickly receding. Domestic advertisers quickly learned from their foreign competitors. In addition to advancements in film techniques and technology, Chinese advertisers learned the trade secret of Western advertising: sex and glamour sell. In magazines as well as on television, attractive and flirtatious young women in revealing outfits have been used to sell everything from hair products to large industrial machinery. Magazines have been known to run articles on "bodybuilding" in order to have an excuse to put pictures of women in bikinis on their covers. Materialism has also been used extensively as a selling point. Characters in commercials are portrayed as decidedly middle- or upper-class. Regardless of the product being sold, large homes and extensive possessions are often featured in the background. An often unreachable way of life is advertised along with the product. (112)
The materialism of commercials was actually used as a justification by Party propagandists. One writer in 1985 argued that,
When people see or hear an advertisement, they will think, 'If I have enough money, I can buy these products.' These material reasons will impel them to work hard.... [A]dvertising consequently accelerates the expansion of production. (113)
However, like so many aspects of reforms, the material standards promoted in advertising had ramifications that the Party failed to foresee. Commercials depicting a higher standard of living served to raise people's expectations regarding their own lives. It was difficult not to compare their own housing conditions, income, and capacity to purchase luxury goods to the characters and lifestyles in commercials. Through the none too subtle medium of television commercials, the Chinese public was confronted with the starkness of their own situation. In 1986, inflation rates began to rise and rolled back the material gains made over the previous years. Frustrated desires for a better life, exacerbated by commercials and commercialism, contributed significantly to political unrest and the resulting student movements in 1986 and 1989.
