Programmes
CCTV produces its own news broadcasts three times a day and is the country's most powerful and prolific television program producer. Its thirty-minute evening news, Xinwen Lianbo ("CCTV Network News", Chinese:新闻联播), goes on air daily at 7:00 pm Beijing time. All local stations are required to carry CCTV's news broadcast. An internal CCTV survey indicates that nearly 500 million people countrywide regularly watch this program. However, the figure has slumped in recent years; the program now has 10% of the ratings market, compared to 40% before 1998.
Although news reform has been a prominent feature of CCTV networks, the Evening News has remained relatively the same since its first appearance in the early 1980s. Many important political news stories are broadcast through the program.
Focus, first introduced in 1994, is a popular programme on CCTV. This discussion programme regularly exposes the wrongdoings of local officials, which attracts serious attention from higher levels of government. The programme also exposes the Chinese Government's response to the corrupt charges.
The CCTV New Year's Gala (Chinese: 中国中央电视台春节联欢晚会)—a yearly special program for the Chinese New Year—is the most-watched CCTV programme. Research in 2007 showed that the Gala was watched by over 800 million people worldwide.
In 2003 CCTV launched its first 24-hour news channel, initially available to cable viewers.
Read more about this topic: China Central Television