SHANGHAI—The New York Times has an article this morning heralding the arrival of CCTV on the world stage. Turns out the Beijing Olympics has awakened advertisers to the vast viewership enjoyed by the state network—an eighteen-channel conglomerate—in the world’s most populous country. The finals for women’s table tennis, for example, drew more viewers than the entire US population. As a result, multinationals are finally starting to take CCTV seriously—and ignore its role as a vehicle for propaganda. The NYT article yet again underscores China’s rising demographic influence. But I’d credit CCTV for a different reason: the Olympics has suddenly made its programming relevant. (more…)

SHANGHAI—It’s sometime past nine, and I’m sprawled across the lawn in People’s Square with a few friends and hundreds of strangers (including a middle-aged couple lost in a makeout session, a boy in a T-shirt that reads I LOVE CHINA, and a legless beggar), watching the opening ceremony on a screen embedded in a skyscraper. We’re about a third of the way through the Parade of Nations, that part of the ceremony where countries display questionable fashionable decisions, en masse. People are starting to get bored. As if on cue, a pair of uniformed guys appear to sell us milk tea for only three times the normal price. But then the crowd erupts into cheers. There, onscreen, is the Canadian team.

So why the uproar? (more…)

SHANGHAI—China’s state television Olympics coverage got off to a tumultuous start. At a ceremony held last fall to celebrate the renaming of CCTV-5 to Olympics Channel (to distinguish it, presumably, from CCTV-1, -2, -3, -4, -6, -7, -8, -9, -10, -11- and -12), jilted media darling Hu Ziwei stormed the stage and announced that her husband, sports news announcer Zhang Bin, was having an affair.

The confrontation that ensued—Hu, clad in a pea coat and Burberry scarf, calmly explaining that her husband was tainting the image of the Olympics; a crew worker, palm splayed, rushing the camera lens; a pan to the blurry rings fading into the background—was the stuff of great soap opera. The clip was excised from the broadcast version of the ceremony, but fortunately some brave soul caught it all on a cell phone camera. It now lives on Youtube. (more…)