'Focus' (Jiaodian Fangtan) and the Changes in the Chinese ...

LI XIAOPING
Battle for ratings 3
Facing the same battle for advertising revenue, competition among the media takes
place at various levels. There is competition among TV, radio and printed media,
competition between TV stations, channels and programs. Journalists compete for
exclusive news sources, and for prime time slots for their own programs by
improving their product. In many ways, this kind of competition is similar to that
in capitalist societies.
Many local TV stations have also been able to compete for audiences with the
national network by transmitting their broadcasts via satellite or cable network to
big cities. Audiences have bene� ted from more choices. In order to gain an edge
over competitors, TV stations have to constantly review their strategy and programs
while striking a balance between professional standards and high-quality programs.
Consequently, while audience ratings were never especially important in the past,
they have become a dominating factor in TV programs. CCTV regularly reviews
the ratings for each channel and program. If any program transmitted in prime time
fails to reach certain levels of ratings, it will be removed from prime time and
rescheduled to a time slot described as ‘graveyard’. This refers to late evening or
after-midnight, or during the daytime. For example, the program ‘Tell It Like It Is’
(Shi Hua Shi Shuo) (‘Speaking the Truth’) was removed from a Sunday morning
time slot to Sunday evening after it showed an audience rating of 4.2% at the
beginning of December 2000.
The competition for ratings does not mean the end of government supervision,
however. TV stations must also satisfy the demands of government and political
directives; the media have, in practice, to steer a middle course between the
pressure from economic competition and political directives. This is the only way
to survive in a society which is both economically competitive and politically
directed.
News output
The booming market economy has forced TV stations to recognize the importance
of serving the people and providing information that they need and are interested
to know. This explains the � ourishing number of programs that provide social and
economic information such as share prices, traf� c news, weather forecasts and farm
produce prices.
Breaking news such as natural disasters and crises such as war and con� ict have
gained more coverage as they are items of interest for most TV viewers. TV
journalists have become more aggressive in reporting those stories. CCTV has
given a high percentage of coverage to live breaking news, investigative reporting
and major issues and crises including the launch of satellites and the ground
breaking of the Three Gorges Dam Project; � oods and earthquakes and the nuclear
3. China’s primary source of television ratings data are CVSC-SOFRES MEDIA (CSM) and AC Nielsen.
CVSC-SOFRES MEDIA (CSM) provides rating data every day of the year for about 700 channels in 12 provinces
and some 70 cities throughout China. The ratings are obtained from a representative sample of 22,000 households,
using diary and people-meter methods. AC Nielsen provides data for some southern east cities in China.
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