CCTV-4 Ruins SMS on News Programs for All

BEIJING --- In what surely must be added under the 'what were they thinking?
' category, a number of producers for CCTV's international Mandarin channel
CCTV-4 were fired or disciplined following the furor over a news contest
quiz on the popular program Today's Focus (Jin Ri Guan Zhu).

During coverage of the Beslan school hostage crisis in Russia, Today's Focus
viewers were invited to guess via SMS on their mobile phones the number of
hostages that were killed during the crisis. Successful 'guesses' would then
be entered into a raffle for an undisclosed prize.

SARFT's response was to issue a new circular banning the operation of short
messaging services linked to TV news programs. Although it was widely
reported that SARFT has banned SMS contests in association with any TV shows
this is, in fact, not the case. The ban (in its current form) only extends
to 'news' shows.

A better, and less knee jerk, reaction may have been to simply fire the
producers and leave it at that.

However, SARFT tends to err on the side of caution whenever it comes to
providing the general population with some input into the news process
through technology (witness the ban on Digicam programs being carried on air
without prior approval: CMM Passim) and Today's Focus tasteless stunt meant
that some reaction had to be given; and it was.

This is a major setback as Chinese TV stations were beginning to believe
that the news genre that does not have advertising and sponsorship revenues
could utilize SMS services as an ancillary revenue stream. While game shows
and other non-news shows can, and will, continue to utilize SMS to create
greater interactivity and excitement into their programs, China's news
experiment is now over.

While no solid figures for actual revenue through SMS services to Chinese TV
stations exists, anecdotal evidence throughout the industry suggests that it
was being looked at more and more seriously as an additional revenue source;
especially by cash strapped news programs.

Will the ban eventually be rescinded? Will it be extended into other program
formats?

Nobody knows. However, China's TV industry needs more opportunities to seek
revenue, not less. Pay TV take-up has been rather dismal at best until now
and while advertising revenue has increased, CCTV takes the lion's share of
that.

CCTV-4 will never be in any danger of going off the air for obvious
political reasons. Revenue is frankly of little consequence to them, so the
ban on SMS services will have no direct effect on their bottom line.

However, CCTV's actions have and will cause serious damage to those regional
and local news programs that were in the process of finding new and creative
ways to fund their programs.