chinese tv

Danwei pointed me to an article on Chinese TV from Newsweek. With Angie now a weekly fixture on Chinese TV via SMG's BizWatch, it made for interesting reading.

A few things that resonated with me:

• Chinese TV is flooded with commercials of every sort, from slick ones for shampoo and toothpaste that would fit in on any station anywhere to some cheesy-ass infomercials to make your boobs bigger or to grow 10cm.
• The continuing urbanization (and what's the noun for becoming more urbane?) is definitely one of the social movements that will provide tenure opportunities for Chinese historians in years to come.
• SMG v. CCTV will be an interesting co-opetition. CCTV seems to try to take the high road with some of its programming (Documentary) while SMG tries to be more outwardly commercial in its appeal. I once saw a Malaysian media academic give an interview where he said that some experts see a future for global news channels dominated by CNN (or Fox) in North America, BBC  in Europe and CCTV in Asia (not just China). Now language barriers may prevent that vision, but  I'm sure it's one that China wouldn't mind realizing. Personally, I like SMG and a lot of what they're doing, especially on Dragon TV. Their station IDs along are in a whole nother league - very cool.