CCTV: One Network, 1.2 Billion Viewers

Even in a city of cutting-edge architecture, China Central Television's new Beijing headquarters promises to be an imposing structural statement when it is completed in time for the 2008 Olympics. Currently under construction, the loop of vertical and horizontal towers, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, is as good a piece of propaganda as any in signaling the arrival of the new China.CCTV, begun in 1958, airs 16 channels 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Channel 1, which is transmitted to every TV in China, offers a mix of comedies and dramas (mostly Chinese soap operas). CCTV has a relationship with regional TV stations, run by local governments, which must reserve one or two channels for the national broadcaster. (No Western programming is shown during prime time.)Like other state-owned media, CCTV had its government subsidies slashed in the 1990s and is now 90 percent supported by ad revenue, said Peter Guoa, director of the commercial and economic information center, CCTV. He estimates 2006's ad revenue of $1.2 billion is more than twice what the network rung up in 1996. "Chinese consumers are more influenced by TV commercials than consumers are by TV in the U.S.," says Guoa, through an interpreter. "While you have three national networks in the U.S., we have one and it reaches 1.2 billion people—the largest audience in the world."CCTV's monopoly becomes abundantly clear at its raucous annual one-day auction for commercial time. Given the multiple networks in the U.S., advertisers have more leverage, playing broadcasters off one another. In China, the reverse happens as the country's sole national TV network pits buyers against one another. At last November's pre-Olympics session, complete with CCTV actors, newsreaders and "applause" promoters, bidders handed CCTV $860 million, a 16 percent increase over the year earlier. For the third year in a row, Procter & Gamble was CCTV's biggest spender, pledging $53 million. (By comparison, Colgate-Palmolive, the only other Western advertiser there, spent $6 million.) Wang Lao Ji, Meng Niu and Mingshen were among China's largest local companies. The amount of commercial time per hour is regulated by China's broadcast TV bureau and cannot be greater than 15 percent of an hour. There are no restrictions on the amount of international ad time. In April, CCTV's international broadcasts—seen by 45 million subscribers outside China—will be divided into three channels focusing on Asia, Europe and America.

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CCTV: One Network, 1.2 Billion Viewers

Noreen O'Leary

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Noreen O'Leary