From The Development Of Beijing Music Radio The Broadcast Commercial Features

Echoing China's market economy development, the commercialization of media is a natural trend. Since media in China is born to be owned by the Party and the government, the changes, including the policy-making and the management is considered a mission which is still in a long way to fully accomplish and the processes are worth to study.It is well known in the media economy that radio is a low-input, flexible media for being the aim of the investors. Although in China, it was almost ignored after TV and newspaper, the attempt of being commercialized in radio has started since 1980s, and finally got big success in recent years.Employing content analysis, interview, file research methods, and with the experiences in radio industry of the author, the development of Beijing Music Radio is deeply studied. In addition, the results reveal the 'Chinese characteristics' in the commercialization processes. Primarily, the industry was burdened public-service, commercial and the Propaganda functions. It caused the difficulty to run the free business in political economy principles. Secondly, the technology innovation provided the opportunities to the new competitors and big firms, in other words, the entrance of the market was lowered and the cost of conglomerating was highly reduced. Thirdly, the 'Chinese characteristics' of the economy and culture environments in China heavily shaped the commercialization of radio. In direct response to the situation, forth goers had to choose complicated strategies to cater the abnormal commercialization.