CCTV to launch English-language TV service in the US

Monday 07 Nov 2011
China’s state broadcaster CCTV is to provide original English language content by the middle of 2012 from a new US hub in Washington DC, according to the Financial Times.

CCTV will reportedly produce up to six hours of original content a day from the US, while an additional studio in Nairobi will supplement the broadcaster’s English-language service in Africa. Another bureau is expected to be unveiled in Europe shortly. These follow the opening of a newsgathering bureau and studio equipped for live broadcast in Dubai in January.

“The big four Western news agencies dominate about 80% of the news flow, and if China wants to strengthen its soft power, it must speak through its own media,” Dong Tiance, a journalism professor at Jinan University, told the Financial Times.

“The strengthening of international broadcasting allows the world to understand us more thoroughly and increases our influence.”

As well as operating 16 national channels in China, CCTV also broadcasts across the world in English, Arabic, French, Spanish and Russian. It claims to reach a global TV audience of one billion.