Xinwen Lianbo
Encyclopedia
Xinwen Lianbo is a daily news
programme produced by China Central Television
(CCTV). It is shown simultaneously by most terrestrial television
channels in mainland China
, making it one of the world's most watched television programmes. It has been broadcast since 1978.
The half-hour program serves as the primary television medium for the dissemination of news related to government announcements and meetings, commentaries on major economic and policy issues, and the activities of national leaders. These three themes form the bulk of its content. The program reflects official positions of the Chinese government on a wide range of matters. The program serves more as a medium for the state to divulge its policy agenda and political positions rather than an objective examination of a day's important news events. It has been criticized both within China and internationally for its lack of newsworthy content and its stilted, robotic format. Despite declining popularity, it remains a widely watched program that garners attention from China watchers, academics, businesspeople, and much of China's domestic population.
name has two words: Xinwen (/) means "news" and Lianbo (/) closely translates to "Joint broadcast" or "Simulcast", referring to the fact that material is broadcast by all government television channels in China.
The programme consists of a daily news bulletin of approximately thirty minutes, beginning with the headlines and proceeding to detailed reports. In special circumstances, the broadcast is extended beyond the 30 minutes allotted when deemed necessary. For example, during the 1990s, the death of Deng Xiaoping
extended Xinwen Lianbo broadcast beyond the regular time for over a week. The announcers are shown seated, with a window into the control room behind them. The format has hardly varied for three decades, even its details. Mandarin
is always used, in accordance with government language policies, and throughout the broadcast the language is formal and flowery. The delivery is stilted, without happy talk
or humour.
Although CCTV has access to the latest technology, it never includes 'two-ways' and live reports of the kind that are common in 21st century Western bulletins (although it did air live reports of the launch of the Chang'e 2
lunar satellite on October 1, 2010). Even the opening titles and music have remained unchanged: a comparison of the 1991 and 2007 sequences reveals differences in superficial technology rather than symbolic imagery.
The programme justifies its title with a comprehensive distribution system that has led the Washington Post to dub it "one of the world's most watched news programs." Calculations based on official statistics suggest as many as 135 million people tune in each day. The Wall Street Journal calculated in 2006 that it had fourteen times the audience of the highest-rated US news show. The initial 7 pm broadcast is carried simultaneously on CCTV-1
, CCTV-13, and on the primary channel of each provincial station (Anhui Television
-1, BTV-1, Chongqing Television
, etc.). CCTV-13 usually repeats the programme at 9 pm, and there are later repeats dubbed into selected minority languages for viewers in appropriate regions (as of 2006, at least Mongolian
and Tibetan
). This ensures that urban cable
viewers may see around half the available channels carrying the programme, while it is often carried on all the available terrestrial television
channels in rural China
.
s, usually one male and one female, chosen from a very small pool. From 1989 to 2006, the main newsreaders were Xing Zhibin and Luo Jing
, assisted by four others. On 5 June 2006, two younger newscasters were introduced, namely Li Zimeng and Kang Hui.
As with all news broadcasts in mainland China, the running order is dictated by the socio-political importance of the individual or group concerned (rather than other news values
). Therefore the activities of the President of the People's Republic of China
are almost always the first item, followed by reports on the members of the Politburo Standing Committee in rank order. Diplomatic engagements are usually shown before domestic engagements. Significant statements from the Central People's Government
or the Communist Party of China
are read out, in full, after the headlines. When significant events or speeches are covered, the camera will carefully pan across the Politburo Standing Committee.
, aptly summed up its content in three phrases: "The leaders are busy, the motherland is developing rapidly, other countries are in chaos."
On the one hand, it is the news source with the widest reach amongst China's large population, and so it provides the Party with the opportunity to influence the masses. According to Li, watching the bulletin has traditionally been "a national ritual at the family dinner table."
On the other hand, it is used as a mechanism to signal changes and continuities in policy and personnel. New policies are introduced by special features, such as a the 'model cadre' used to promote Three Represents
in 2002. The ranked shots of the Politburo Standing Committee indicate their relative power: "Each leader is allocated a certain number of seconds in front of the camera, Chinese media experts say, with the time for each one carefully regulated by the party propaganda department." This lies behind the programme's extreme formality, because any miscommunication could have serious consequences.
The China Daily
reported that interest in the programme has declined, only receiving 10% of the audience share market compared to 40% before 1998. This was due in part to reporting of official government announcements, which have attracted little interest. From June 20, 2009, Xinwen Lianbo will focus more on critical reporting and human interest stories.
were posted by internet users ridiculing the comment and CCTV's credibility in part. The incident also questioned the reliability of Xinwen Lianbo, noting the unlikelihood of a web page being both violent and erotic at the same time (even though such pages do exist), and the age of the student interviewed. Personal information of the interviewed girl was later also leaked, identifying the girl in the report by name. Online message boards were populated by large threads about the incident, and a satirical work even stated that CCTV's website was the number one "very erotic very violent" website on the internet, with some users even creating their own toplists of sites which meet these criteria, the "top 8 very erotic very violent sports events" and even identifying things that are yellow
as being erotic (since 黄, huáng, the Mandarin character for "yellow", also means "erotic").
in the air by firing a missile at an airplane, the target plane then exploded. This footage lasted half a second and the destroyed airplane shown was identified as that of an F-5E, a US fighter jet. It turns out the clip was taken from the 1986 US movie Topgun.
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
programme produced by China Central Television
China Central Television
China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...
(CCTV). It is shown simultaneously by most terrestrial television
Terrestrial television
Terrestrial television is a mode of television broadcasting which does not involve satellite transmission or cables — typically using radio waves through transmitting and receiving antennas or television antenna aerials...
channels in mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, making it one of the world's most watched television programmes. It has been broadcast since 1978.
The half-hour program serves as the primary television medium for the dissemination of news related to government announcements and meetings, commentaries on major economic and policy issues, and the activities of national leaders. These three themes form the bulk of its content. The program reflects official positions of the Chinese government on a wide range of matters. The program serves more as a medium for the state to divulge its policy agenda and political positions rather than an objective examination of a day's important news events. It has been criticized both within China and internationally for its lack of newsworthy content and its stilted, robotic format. Despite declining popularity, it remains a widely watched program that garners attention from China watchers, academics, businesspeople, and much of China's domestic population.
Name, format and distribution
There is no standard English translation of the name. Variants in use include Evening News and Network News Broadcast. An Oxford dictionary gives news hook-up. The ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
name has two words: Xinwen (/) means "news" and Lianbo (/) closely translates to "Joint broadcast" or "Simulcast", referring to the fact that material is broadcast by all government television channels in China.
The programme consists of a daily news bulletin of approximately thirty minutes, beginning with the headlines and proceeding to detailed reports. In special circumstances, the broadcast is extended beyond the 30 minutes allotted when deemed necessary. For example, during the 1990s, the death of Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...
extended Xinwen Lianbo broadcast beyond the regular time for over a week. The announcers are shown seated, with a window into the control room behind them. The format has hardly varied for three decades, even its details. Mandarin
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
is always used, in accordance with government language policies, and throughout the broadcast the language is formal and flowery. The delivery is stilted, without happy talk
Happy talk
Happy talk, also called banter, is the additional and often meaningless commentary interspersed into news programs by news anchors and others on set. It may consist of simple jokes or simply a modified wording in asking a question of another reporter...
or humour.
Although CCTV has access to the latest technology, it never includes 'two-ways' and live reports of the kind that are common in 21st century Western bulletins (although it did air live reports of the launch of the Chang'e 2
Chang'e 2
Chang'e 2 is a Chinese unmanned lunar probe that was launched on 1 October 2010. It was a follow-up to the Chang'e 1 lunar probe, which was launched in 2007. Chang'e 2 was part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, and conducted research from a 100-kilometer-high lunar orbit...
lunar satellite on October 1, 2010). Even the opening titles and music have remained unchanged: a comparison of the 1991 and 2007 sequences reveals differences in superficial technology rather than symbolic imagery.
The programme justifies its title with a comprehensive distribution system that has led the Washington Post to dub it "one of the world's most watched news programs." Calculations based on official statistics suggest as many as 135 million people tune in each day. The Wall Street Journal calculated in 2006 that it had fourteen times the audience of the highest-rated US news show. The initial 7 pm broadcast is carried simultaneously on CCTV-1
CCTV-1
CCTV-1 is the primary channel of the Chinese television network, CCTV in the People's Republic of China. It has a mixture of all kinds of TV programs, and is available to both cable and terrestrial television viewers.-External links:*...
, CCTV-13, and on the primary channel of each provincial station (Anhui Television
Anhui Television
Anhui Television , is a television network in the Hefei and Anhui province. It was founded and started to broadcast on September 1960. AHTV currently broadcasts in Mandarin.-External links:*...
-1, BTV-1, Chongqing Television
Chongqing Television
Chongqing Broadcasting Group Chongqing Broadcasting Group Chongqing Broadcasting Group (CBG; is a television broadcaster based in Chongqing, China. Its main channel, CQTV is carried on cable systems in urban areas throughout mainland China and is available nationwide on both analogue and digital...
, etc.). CCTV-13 usually repeats the programme at 9 pm, and there are later repeats dubbed into selected minority languages for viewers in appropriate regions (as of 2006, at least Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
and Tibetan
Tibetan language
The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
). This ensures that urban cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
viewers may see around half the available channels carrying the programme, while it is often carried on all the available terrestrial television
Terrestrial television
Terrestrial television is a mode of television broadcasting which does not involve satellite transmission or cables — typically using radio waves through transmitting and receiving antennas or television antenna aerials...
channels in rural China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
.
Presenters
It is always presented by two news presenterNews presenter
A news presenter is a person who presents news during a news program in the format of a television show, on the radio or the Internet.News presenters can work in a radio studio, television studio and from remote broadcasts in the field especially weather...
s, usually one male and one female, chosen from a very small pool. From 1989 to 2006, the main newsreaders were Xing Zhibin and Luo Jing
Luo Jing
Luo Jing was a prominent news anchor for China Central Television , the main state broadcaster of the People's Republic of China. He was known all over China as an announcer for the 7:00pm CCTV News program Xinwen Lianbo. As one of China's most well-known TV personalities, Luo's voice was very...
, assisted by four others. On 5 June 2006, two younger newscasters were introduced, namely Li Zimeng and Kang Hui.
- Xing Zhibin (female, 邢質斌/邢质斌).
- Wang Ning (male, 王寧/王宁)
- Zhang Hongmin (male, 張宏民/张宏民)
- Li Xiuping (female, 李修平/李修平)
- Li Ruiying (female, 李瑞英/李瑞英)
- Kang Hui (male, 康輝/康辉), born around 1970, graduate of the Beijing Broadcasting Institute. Newsreader 2006-.
- Li Zimeng (female, 李梓萌/李梓萌), born around 1977, graduate of the Beijing Broadcasting Institute. Newsreader 2006-.
- Hai Xia (female, 海霞/海霞)
- Guo Zhijian (male, 郭志堅/郭志坚)
- Lang Yongchun (male, 郎永淳/郎永淳)
- Ouyang Xiadan (female, 歐陽夏丹/欧阳夏丹)
News values
As with all news broadcasts in mainland China, the running order is dictated by the socio-political importance of the individual or group concerned (rather than other news values
News values
News values, sometimes called news criteria, determine how much prominence a news story is given by a media outlet, and the attention it is given by the audience. A. Boyd states that: "News journalism has a broadly agreed set of values, often referred to as 'newsworthines'..." News values are not...
). Therefore the activities of the President of the People's Republic of China
President of the People's Republic of China
The President of the People's Republic of China is a ceremonial office and a part of State organs under the National People's Congress and it is the head of state of the People's Republic of China . The office was created by the 1982 Constitution...
are almost always the first item, followed by reports on the members of the Politburo Standing Committee in rank order. Diplomatic engagements are usually shown before domestic engagements. Significant statements from the Central People's Government
Central People's Government
The Central People's Government is the central government of the People's Republic of China in Beijing. According to the 1982 Constitution, "Central People's Government" is synonymous with the State Council.-History:...
or the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
are read out, in full, after the headlines. When significant events or speeches are covered, the camera will carefully pan across the Politburo Standing Committee.
Progaganda aims
The programme plays a role in the CPC's communication mechanisms at both the mass and élite levels. Zhan Jiang, professor at China Youth University for Political SciencesChina Youth University for Political Sciences
China Youth University for Political Sciences is a university in Beijing, People's Republic of China. The university was officially established in 1985 by the Communist Youth League of China...
, aptly summed up its content in three phrases: "The leaders are busy, the motherland is developing rapidly, other countries are in chaos."
On the one hand, it is the news source with the widest reach amongst China's large population, and so it provides the Party with the opportunity to influence the masses. According to Li, watching the bulletin has traditionally been "a national ritual at the family dinner table."
On the other hand, it is used as a mechanism to signal changes and continuities in policy and personnel. New policies are introduced by special features, such as a the 'model cadre' used to promote Three Represents
Three Represents
The Three Represents is a socio-political ideology credited to General Secretary Jiang Zemin which became a guiding ideology of the Communist Party of China at its Sixteenth Party Congress in 2002....
in 2002. The ranked shots of the Politburo Standing Committee indicate their relative power: "Each leader is allocated a certain number of seconds in front of the camera, Chinese media experts say, with the time for each one carefully regulated by the party propaganda department." This lies behind the programme's extreme formality, because any miscommunication could have serious consequences.
Declining popularity
All CCTV programmes are under commercial pressure, but Xinwen Lianbo is less affected than most. It has few competitors, though Hong Kong's Phoenix TV and Shanghai's Dragon TV It is also one of CCTV's major earners. While there are no commercials during the show, the slots immediately afterwards sell for US$100,000 each, and the five-second slot just before 7 pm is the most expensive CCTV offers, worth 24 million RMB in 2003 (about 7% of CCTV's annual advertising revenue).The China Daily
China Daily
The China Daily is an English language daily newspaper published in the People's Republic of China.- Overview :China Daily was established in June 1981 and has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in the country...
reported that interest in the programme has declined, only receiving 10% of the audience share market compared to 40% before 1998. This was due in part to reporting of official government announcements, which have attracted little interest. From June 20, 2009, Xinwen Lianbo will focus more on critical reporting and human interest stories.
"Very erotic very violent"
On 27 December 2007, Xinwen Lianbo aired a report about the wide and easy availability of explicit content on the internet. The report appealed to juristic institutions and government to hurry to make relevant legislation in order to purify the internet environment. In the report, a young student described a pop-up advertisement she saw as being "very erotic very violent". After the airing of the report, many parodiesKuso
Kuso is the term used in East Asia for the internet culture that generally includes all types of camp and parody. In Japanese, means shit, and is often uttered as an interjection. It is considered milder than its English counterpart, more comparable to damn. It is also used to describe outrageous...
were posted by internet users ridiculing the comment and CCTV's credibility in part. The incident also questioned the reliability of Xinwen Lianbo, noting the unlikelihood of a web page being both violent and erotic at the same time (even though such pages do exist), and the age of the student interviewed. Personal information of the interviewed girl was later also leaked, identifying the girl in the report by name. Online message boards were populated by large threads about the incident, and a satirical work even stated that CCTV's website was the number one "very erotic very violent" website on the internet, with some users even creating their own toplists of sites which meet these criteria, the "top 8 very erotic very violent sports events" and even identifying things that are yellow
Yellow
Yellow is the color evoked by light that stimulates both the L and M cone cells of the retina about equally, with no significant stimulation of the S cone cells. Light with a wavelength of 570–590 nm is yellow, as is light with a suitable mixture of red and green...
as being erotic (since 黄, huáng, the Mandarin character for "yellow", also means "erotic").
Chengdu J-10 footage
On January 23, 2011 the program showcased the Chengdu J-10Chengdu J-10
The Chengdu J-10 is a multirole fighter aircraft designed and produced by the People's Republic of China's Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation for the People's Liberation Army Air Force...
in the air by firing a missile at an airplane, the target plane then exploded. This footage lasted half a second and the destroyed airplane shown was identified as that of an F-5E, a US fighter jet. It turns out the clip was taken from the 1986 US movie Topgun.