MCLC: paying for the public welfare on tv

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Han Meng <hanmeng at gmail.com>
Subject: paying for the public welfare on tv
***********************************************************

Source: China Media Project (11/29/11): http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/11/29/17213/

Who’s paying for the public welfare on TV?
By David Bandurski

It’s been a busy year for China’s broadcast authority, the State
Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), which has made it
its mission to shake up the already messy world of Chinese television. The
body’s latest action, formally announced yesterday, is to ban the
insertion of advertising in popular television dramas.

Back in July this year, SARFT held a “discussion forum” to address the
issue of “entertainment excessiveness” in Chinese television programming,
giving bosses from various provincial television networks an ostensible
opportunity to offer their views on new restrictions that already seemed a
foregone conclusion. The entertainment programming ban, known in China by
the shorthand xian yu ling (限娱令), finally came in September and took
effect in October. It forced television stations to broadcast
“entertainment programs” (娱乐节目) no more than three times a week during
prime time (5-10pm).

The latest SARFT ban on advertising in television dramas expressly
prohibits the interruption of dramas with ads, but does not prevent
broadcasters from airing advertisements before and after dramas, or from
placing paid-for plugs directly into the dramas themselves. There are some
ambiguities here that could lead to interesting cheats or workarounds from
television broadcasters, something we’ll come to later.

[ABOVE: Today's frontpage at the commercial Dongguan Times makes the
latest SARFT ban the leading story. Strips of film labeled "advertising"
are crossed into an X with a pair of scissors. The headline: "Ban on [ad]
insertion. SARFT: Beginning next year TV dramas can’t insert ads.” The
paper reports estimated losses to the TV sector by the move at 20 billion
yuan, or 3.1 billion US dollars.]

But behind a swarm of questions like, “Will the rule kill off advertising
revenues in the television sector?” and “Will broadcasters find a way to
sneak around the rule?”, there looms a far more basic question: Why?

Why, indeed.

The ready answer seems to be that SARFT is putting its regulatory muscle
where the Party’s mouth is on the broader issue of “cultural reforms.” To
recap, the main theme at the recent plenary session of the Party’s 17th
Central Committee was the building of a new cultural vibrancy in China
through what was billed as a concerted process of cultural reform. In the
Party’s formulation, this policy would bring a windfall of global “soft
power” for China and give China the non-material confidence to stand
strong “in the forest of nations.”

The talk of “cultural renewal” at the meeting came with a whole set of
political and ideological imperatives. And superficially at least, it
seems that SARFT is now muscling in on the television sector with some of
these imperatives under its arm.

First of all, the “Notice” coming out of the October plenum said culture
had to “uphold the main theme” and adhere to “correct guidance of public
opinion,” both code for towing the Party’s political line. Further, the
“Notice” stressed that “Marxism must be upheld as the guiding principle”
of cultural reforms carried out “with the ideological armor of socialism
with Chinese characteristics.” This would ensure cultural reforms “moved
in the correct [political] direction.”

More directly relevant to this ad-related ban, however, the “Notice”
defined “the building of a public culture service system” (公共文化服务体系)
as 
one of the chief goals of cultural reforms. In yesterday’s official notice
from SARFT, “actively developing cultural work in the public welfare” as
prioritized at the recent sixth plenum is given as justification for the
ban on advertising. The idea, basically, is that advertisements pollute
the public welfare value of the television space, and removing them from
television dramas is a service to the Chinese public.

Some members of the public have understood the ban in exactly this way.
Internet user Yan Ni (燕妮) wrote on her weblog today:

"The public opinion power of ordinary people is pretty substantial. The
new SARFT regulations have surfaced, and beginning January 2012
advertisements can’t be inserted into television dramas. This gives the
audience back a harmonious and efficient television environment. The hopes
of ordinary people have been answered. This is a good thing, a very good
thing.” 

This of course is a fair initial reaction from the sofa. But there are
important institutional, economic, practical and, yes, political questions
that are left hanging by this SARFT action and its public service
justification.

The section of October’s “Notice” that deals with “building a public
culture service system” states that “public welfare cultural units” will
form the “backbone” of this project, “supported by public financing.” The
same section also talks about “employing government procurement, project
subsidies, direct subsidies, interest subsidies, tax reduction and other
policy measures” to “encourage various cultural firms to participate in
public culture service.” Clearly, providing state funding for public
welfare programming is one thing, and forcing public welfare programming
standards on commercially operating enterprises is another.

This begs the question of the exact institutional nature of the television
networks that will be impacted by the SARFT policy. Since the 1990s, media
in China have been weaned off government support and encouraged to
commercialize. In a competitive national market, they have been forced to
fight for ad dollars, a fight for their survival. But the Party of course
maintains the Party nature of all media in China, which is to say that
there are no truly “independent” media even if the vast majority of
Chinese media today have become financially independent.

So are these television networks “public welfare institutions”? Or are
they for-profit entities? The answer is that they are neither and both, a
question that Wei Yingjie (魏英杰) addressed yesterday at the Economic
Observer:

    . . . [T]he rationality and feasibility of the ‘advertising ban’
policy remain in question. In terms of the policy itself, SARFT can of
course issue this or that regulation given that it is the department that
overseas broadcast television nationwide. But the question of whether or
not the policy is rational is a matter of whether or not it accommodates
the industry’s own laws of development. So we have to make clear: are
mainland television stations ultimately public welfare institutions or are
they for-profit institutions? The answer is that mainland television
stations are not purely public welfare institutions, nor are they entirely
marketized institutions. Rather, they are compounds of both.

The core question, then, is this. Who is paying for the “public welfare”
mandate? And for that matter, who is paying for the cultural reforms
trumpeted so loudly at October’s meeting?

Wei sums it up like this: “The issue is really simple. Mainland television
stations do not rely on fiscal appropriations to survive, and so they must
be permitted to go and find sustenance in the marketplace.” It’s entirely
unreasonable, he suggests, to expect profit-driven television stations to
take a hit for “public welfare” without the government stepping up with
its pocketbook — and arguably goes against the “spirit” of the Party’s
October “Notice”, which indicates that public financing will support the
so-called “public culture service system” that is the core justification
of the SARFT action.

Here is Wei Yingjie again:

    This means that while administrative departments [like SARFT] can
demand that television stations at various levels have a great public
welfare quality about them, the government must finance these stations,
otherwise there is no reason to inhibit the television stations in
carrying out commercial activities.

“Who’s paying for this?” seems a most basic question that neither SARFT
nor the Party leaders who presumably back this decision have cared to
think about. On page nine of the CCP’s official People’s Daily today,
Zhang He (张贺) praises the SARFT action, saying that television viewers
have been “held ransom” by advertisements. He concludes with staggering
blindness: “I hope television stations won’t focus too much on the
short-term impact of the ban on inserting advertisements and will take a
longer view, putting their energies into raising their own core
competitiveness, constantly creating various unique and excellent content
resources.” Pray tell, Zhang, how will these television stations pay for
the “unique” and “excellent” programs you imagine populating this
idealistic future?

There also seems to be a serious disconnect in the SARFT action between
problem assessment and policy prescription. This can be glimpsed again in
Zhang He’s editorial, where he argues that while people do not object to
“reasonable advertising,” “the values of some television broadcast units
have gone seriously awry, and they care more about economic benefit than
the public welfare.” Admitting that “some” stations might have behaved
excessively, where is the rationale then for banning all ads at all
stations?

Further, the inconsistent and apparently unfair application of this public
welfare standard calls into question the motives at the very core. Zhang
He writes in People’s Daily about advertisements on television dramas
“harming the normal viewing rights of the masses.” But what about
advertisements inserted into news programming in China? Isn’t that serious
too?

A report on the SARFT action at China Enterprise Online today quoted
Beijing Huayuan Group CEO Ren Zhiqiang (任志强) as saying: “Why aren’t they
limiting the insertion of advertisements in news programming? It seems
that a lot of advertisements are still being inserted into a lot of [news]
programs like Diyi Shijian [on CCTV 2]. We should treat all equally
without discrimination. Every one is equal under the law, you know.”

It is of course a further hypocrisy to righteously defend the right of the
Chinese public to be free from advertising during television dramas when
there is, too put it gingerly, an insufficient respect for the public’s
right to know. Shouldn’t public welfare programming begin by safeguarding
the accuracy of news and information in the public interest? This point
was made in a backhand fashion by Wang Ran (王冉), the CEO of China eCapital
Corporation, again at China Enterprise Online. In reference to China’s
official nightly newscast, which is stacked with propaganda about top
Party leaders, Wang remarked: “I hope that some day Xinwen Lianbo too will
stop its 30-minute advertising insertion.” Wang was of course referring to
the news program itself, one big advertisement for top Party leaders.

Beyond the issue of whether these new measures are reasonable or even at
their core really about the public welfare, there is the question of
whether they will have the intended effect at all. Internet users and
commentators are already speculating about how television stations will
get around the rules. Many people have suggested, for example, that the
rules will result in a flood of product placements in television dramas
themselves — arguably more insidiously damaging to the public welfare.
Another countermeasure to the rules might be to divide dramas into
segments, allowing stations to justify placing ads before and after and
argue that they were not actually “inserted.”

Finally, what other unintended effects will these rules — which, of
course, deal only with television — have in a changing information
terrain, where the Internet and social media are increasingly encroaching
on the television space anyhow? One answer comes from ChinaEquity
International Holding Co. Ltd. CEO Wang Chaoyong (汪潮涌): “All these
various 
bans from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television are just
marginalizing the whole television sector and actively promoting the
development of the internet and mobile media.”