CCTV's Real Future Left to New Leaders

BEIJING --- With the retirement of CCTV President Yang Weiguang, an era of China  central television services seems like it has come to an end. Under his  helmsmanship, CCTV has literally turned from a state propaganda mouthpiece into  a state propaganda mouthpiece with global satellite, cable and terrestrially delivered multi-channel, multi-lingual commercial, entertainment and information broadcasting services and multiple subsidiaries in TV production, distribution,  equipment, technology and media research.  

Yang's accomplishment in balancing political and commercial interests while reacting to the demands of a billion strong audience and the advertisers who want to reach them must surely rank him as one of the most successful state  television controllers in broadcast history. 

Given that CCTV sits at the heart of the highly politically charged Chinese  media industry, Yang's accomplishments seem even more impressive, since CCTV  also ranks among the best national examples of Deng Xiaoping's theory of the  socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.  

Taken in a mainland Chinese context, CCTV's incredible success is indeed a working model of the marriage of commercial TV and state controlled media  resulting in an increasingly modern and professional service that is politically subservient to the ruling party. 

However, all this has only been achieved by the maintenance of a market  protected from foreign competition and with CCTV enjoying favorable domestic  policies which have restricted growth of provincial and municipal networks. With  technological (rather than political) advances likely to make these policies  more marginal in the coming years, CCTV has to overcome realities it has yet to address. But that is a problem for the new leadership. As for Yang, it is hard to see what more he could possibly have done.