China Media Monitor Headlines Archives

Online game operators have been warned to create "healthier" games and vet all games more thoroughly before their launch according to a Ministry of Culture notice released on November 13. Operators should also provide developers with more in-depth training, as the Ministry will ban all games featuring violence, pornography or gambling.

CCTV Sports (CCTV-5) launched negotiations for the broadcast rights to the 2010 FA Premier League season in mainland China on November 24, according to a NetEase report. The League opened the public bidding for the China, Taiwan and Macau broadcast rights to the season on November 1, but the state-run national broadcaster did not participate in the bidding process until November 24.

CCTV Sports Director Jiang Heping said he arranged the November 24 meeting after he received an email from Phil Lines, the FA Premier League's Head of International Broadcasting and Media Operations. Lines expressed regret at CCTV's absence and indicated he would like to meet with Heping to discuss the broadcast rights to the League.

China's radio and TV stations will have to pay music royalties from January 1 next year, according to new interim regulations released by the State Council on November 10. Under the regulations, broadcasters will be able to negotiate with copyright owners to pay music royalties via either a set annual fee or an ad revenue share deal. Alternatively, broadcasters can opt to pay copyright owners the following set rates for each piece of music they play: RMB1.5 (US$0.22) per minute for TV stations or RMB0.3 (US$0.04) per minute for radio stations.

Successfully promoting the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China was one of the major achievements of China's broadcast and film industries this year, according to State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT) Spokesperson Zhu Hong. He praised broadcasters for providing large scale, in-depth reportage of the anniversary celebrations, and for airing TV dramas and films with patriotic themes.

Other major achievements included ongoing cinema construction, digital cable TV network growth, the launch of 10 new high definition channels, and the overseas expansion of many mainland TV and radio channels. Zhu Hong also commended SARFT for successfully taking over all the film industry related administrative work from the Ministry of Culture.

Finally, he said the broadcast and film industries managed to overcome the economic difficulties posed by the global financial crisis.

China's online game industry has made RMB830 million (US$121.52 million) in export revenues since the start of 2009, according to the mainland research firm iResearch. It predicts the export revenues will continue to grow 30% year-on-year every year for the next 3 years, reaching RMB2 billion (US$292.83 million) in 2012. Perfect World generates more export revenues than any other mainland online game developer, with a 27% share of the total.