Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

China Limits Foreign-Made TV Programs

BEIJING — In its latest move to reshape what Chinese viewers can watch on television, the government agency that oversees mass media has issued a new set of regulations that seek to restrict comedies, dramas and movies from abroad.

The new regulations, announced Monday, ban all imported programs during prime time and limit such shows to no more than 25 percent of a channel’s offerings each day, according to a circular posted by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. Stations that violate the rules will be hit with increased fines, although the announcement did not provide details.

In the past year, the agency has sharply reduced entertainment and reality programming, eliminated advertising from the middle of dramas and banned shows employing time travel as a plot device. Popular talent shows like “Super Girl” have been yanked, while racy dating shows like “If You Are the One” have been forcibly imbued with socially salubrious values.

Although Communist Party leaders have lately sought to bolster Chinese culture at home and abroad, and President Hu Jintao wrote last month about the West’s potentially pernicious effect on the nation, the latest rules were aimed at giving the domestic television industry a leg up on Asian competition.

Image
On the set of “If You Are the One,” a dating show that has caught the eye of Chinese officials.Credit...Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

China Daily, the state-run newspaper, said the new rules were intended to create “a favorable environment for TV shows made by companies on the Chinese mainland.” Of the 30 imported shows that were approved last year by mainland regulators, most originated in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, according to the agency’s Web site. Western programming is almost nonexistent on Chinese television.

The new rules, like those before them, seek to micromanage what viewers encounter on their television sets. One limits trailers for imported shows to less than three minutes, while another seeks to prevent any one country or region from dominating the airwaves, though the wording was vague on how that would be determined. One rule capping foreign-made series at 50 episodes may be focused on the sprawling South Korean soap operas that have enraptured so many Chinese viewers.

Even as many people in mainland China have long given up on television or turned to the Internet and pirated DVDs for popular entertainment, users of the microblog service Sina Weibo reacted with a collective groan on Tuesday. “Banning time travel and then dating shows and then imported shows,” one person complained. The agency “wants us all to go to bed early.”

Another person wrote, referring to the agency: “They should really put Sarft in charge of food safety and have the State Food and Drug Administration regulate TV shows — that way we’ll have safe food and good entertainment.”

Some television producers and film directors fret that the increasing number of rules will keep driving audiences away. These days, anyone with an Internet connection can log on to the Chinese Web site Youku and watch hundreds of television shows and films from the United States, Singapore and beyond.

Mia Li contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Aiming at Its Asian TV Competitors, China Limits Foreign-Made Programs. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT