China Media Monitor Headlines Archives

The value of China's news and publishing industry grew an estimated 20% year-on-year in 2009 to more than RMB1 trillion (US$146 billion) by the end of the year, reports China Press and Publications Journal. Jiang Jianguo, vice director of the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), told the journal that the total value of the mainland book publishing industry grew 35% year-on-year in 2009, driven in by a 20% year-on-year increase in book sales. The value of the New Media publishing industry - including online animation, online games and electronic publications - grew 42% year-on-year by the end of 2009, he added.

China will work more actively to inform the rest of the world of its development in 2010, according to a Xinhua News story citing a spokesperson from the International Publicity Department of China's State Council.The department will also act to strengthen its control over stories published via the web, he added. The announcements were made at a government conference hosted by the International Publicity Department on January 4-5.

One hundred mainland animation production groups will receive tax reductions of up to 100% across a number of tax categories, including value added tax, corporate income tax and import tariffs, reports China Youth Daily. The Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Finance and State Taxation Administration are granting the breaks in a bid to promote China's animation industry. To qualify for the reductions, the animation groups need to generate at least 50% of their total revenues from original in-house animation. CCTV Animation, Beijing Glorious Animation and Tianjin Shenjie Animation have qualified for the tax breaks.

On January 4, the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT) conducted an over-the-air (OTA) software upgrade to render the signals from the Chinasat-9 direct-to-home broadcasting satellite unavailable to unlicensed terminals. Despite the broadcast industry regulator's efforts to stamp out the black market in terminals, an estimated 40 million households in China have unlicensed terminals installed. The terminals previously helped households to access the 48 national and provincial channels transmitted by Chinasat-9 free-of-charge, instead of paying CATV fees to access the channels legally via a set-top box. When the upgrades are complete, they are expected to render the unlicensed terminals useless.

Popular provincial broadcaster Hunan TV and independent production company ITV Studios announced a new three-year strategic partnership on January 11. From the start of this year, Hunan TV will license multiple formats from ITV Studios. The parties will also work together to co-develop, create and own new unscripted formats. Hunan TV will produce the new programming, which will be aired in primetime in 2010. ITV Studios will represent the worldwide rights outside China for the finished and the format versions. The deal will allow ITV programming reach more than 58 million viewers in China via Hunan Satellite TV, according to ITV's press release.