Has China’s Largest Television Broadcaster Met Its Waterloo?

Although, this is not the first time for speculation to mount, it has never been as prevalent as it is right now. On the eve of September 2, Lang Yongchun, a household name across China and a seasoned television anchor, appealed for the final time on China’s popular news program “Xinwen Lianbo”, (English name: Network News Broadcast), by CCTV (China Central Television), a state-run national TV station and China’s largest broadcaster. A few days later, information of his resignation came thick and fast through China’s social media. He finally confirmed the unexpected news.

As one of the most experienced and reputable news presenters in CCTV’s history, Lang’s resignation is by all means a bitter pill to swallow for the ever weakening broadcaster. Rumors are circulating that Lang may have resigned as CCTV does not allegedly offer fair payment and creative thinking to its presenters. However, Lang has claimed that he must look after his wife, who is receiving treatment for breast cancer in the USA.

A number of experienced presenters on this program have been promoted to much higher executive positions. Lang is the first one to leave the prospect.

Rather coincidentally, another well-known CCTV presenter Zhang Quanling has also resigned. Compared with Lang, Zhang presented a far more outspoken resignation statement. In her long microblog post released on September 9 in Sina Weibo, China’s social media, an equivalent to Twitter, Zhang claims that she felt restricted when working at CCTV, and, therefore, she needed a break.

In fact, the most commonly given reason for CCTV staff to resign has been a result of “feeling restricted.” Wu Qing, who had worked as the director of “Jiaodian Fangtan”, (English name: Topics in Focus), openly accused CCTV’s of tedious bureaucracy. She opened up about her own experiences on her public WeChat (China’s version of Whatsapp) account. In particular, Wu vented about spending a month working on an episode that would eventually be banned from being broadcast by a top CCTV executive. Wu said that she had been left feeling entirely disappointed with her employer after further such incidents occurred.

Serving as the mouthpiece of the central government, CCTV inevitably smacks of publicity and lacks adequate freedom of performing the duty of media supervision. In June, Bai Yansong, a respected CCTV commentator, was suspended appearing on his program for a week only because he had spoken up without conforming to the government rhetoric.

Despite that, CCTV remains a mega success in terms of commercial revenues. In 2013, CCTV alone accounted for 20 percent of the total 110 billion yuan (US$17.28 billion) of the country’s advertising industry.

The figures fit the reality. Social media fueled by the booming Internet industry is playing an increasingly bigger role in providing information and news comments for Chinese readers. People prefer reading more outspoken analysis articles and watching diversified videos through social media to approach the truth of news events.

Its overseas endeavors have also lagged far behind the world-class TV stations, such as BBC and CNN. CCTV News, the English news channel, has failed to attract a vast foreign audience. It appears that foreigners are put off by the content, which has been likened to government propaganda.

It is hard to answer why the once formidable TV station is becoming increasingly run-down. Even its live broadcast of September 3 Parade was widely criticized for being awkward and unprofessional. Nonetheless, out of all of China’s TV stations, CCTV continues to release the greatest magnitude of news programs among China’s TV stations. However, being the commercially successful should not be the primary goal, but, rather, creating inspiring and creative content.