The BBC’s ambitions in China, one of the fastest-growing television markets in the world, could be undermined by the Chinese government’s anger over a recent documentary about the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
The Chinese authorities are understood to have ordered state-owned broadcasters in the country not to cooperate with BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial arm, after officials were angered by the film, made by the respected reporter Kate Adie to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the pro-democracy protests. It is understood that domestic broadcasters, including China Central Television (CCTV), have been told not to cooperate with BBC Worldwide in buying programs or becoming involved in coproductions. BBC News is believed to be unaffected by the row, however.
BBC Worldwide is expanding aggressively in developing markets, including China, as the corporation seeks to supplement the £3.6 billion (US$6.1 billion) a year it receives from the license fee paid by everyone in the UK who owns a TV set, with commercial income.
Those efforts have become more important since the BBC received a lower than expected license fee settlement from the Labour government in 2007 and in the light of recent promises by the opposition Conservative party to freeze the fee if it comes to power next year.
BBC Worldwide has offices in Hong Kong. Its coproduction with CCTV last year, Wild China, was a huge success.
BBC sources said they had heard that the Chinese authorities had told broadcasters not to cooperate with BBC Worldwide, although a spokesman said nothing had been communicated officially and they were still speaking to clients in the country.
“BBC Worldwide has not received any official notification of a such a ban,” he said.
A press officer at the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing said he had not heard of any such decision.
Adie managed to secure a tourist visa to enter China, after having previously been refused one, in order to film the documentary Kate Adie Returns to Tiananmen Square, which aired in June. She had reported on the massacre for BBC News in 1989.
Hundreds of demonstrators are thought to have been killed when the army broke up the protests, and thousands more were arrested. The Chinese government refuses to discuss the protests, habitually referring to them as “the June 4 incident.”
The BBC also has ambitions for children’s programming in China that can be easily translated into local languages.
BBC Worldwide also publishes a number of local versions of magazines based on its TV shows, including Top Gear about cars, in the country.
Top Gear is one of several programming strands earmarked for growth by BBC Worldwide executives, along with BBC Earth (the collective brand for all the BBC’s natural history programming), the Doctor Who sci-fi series and Lonely Planet, the print and online tour guide business the corporation controversially acquired two years ago.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS