Path Selection For Chinese TV Industry To Grow

Ever since 1996, a year when China's central government requested that news publishing and TV broadcasting industry reconstruct for better order and efficiency, the nation has tried hard to enhance its TV industry for over 10 years. Government, industry professionals, and academics have all contributed in this endeavor, hoping that Chinese TV industry may one day match international standards and help enhance the nation's soft power along with the enhancement of its statues in international politics and economy.In an era of economic and cultural globalization and comprehensive social transition, socialist ideology faces varieties of challenge. Chinese TV industry, therefore, bears the responsibility to compete against western TV power, satisfy domestic needs, integrate ideologies, and to alleviate social conflicts. In this sense, the growth of TV industry has become a most significant task which affects not only the industry itself but also national security, social stability, and stability of the ruling party.We have realized, however, that after 10 years of probing and effort, Chinese TV industry has not yet lived up to our expectation in terms of its size, power, public credibility, and competitiveness and affecting power on international stage. TV industry, though referred to as a "high-profit" industry, has a low overall profit level. Program wise, the industry lacks creativity and core competitive power.One of the main reasons for the above said is various problems lies in government regulation.Market structure wise: "Four level TV station systems" directly causes a loose structure and low market concentration level; "Mouthpiece of the party" has determined a low difference level between programs and TV service; this has largely hindered a balanced development of Chinese TV programs and service. "Administrative permit" has caused high entry requirement which results in restriction on market competition.Market action wise: administrative control on TV program changes all the time, this has caused a decline of public credibility and low export rate; regulation has been virtually absent in advertisement sector, this has caused deluge of lousy advertisement.; responsibility among group is not clear, this leads to the absence of a healthy growth background for professionalism and TV entrepreneurship.Regulation mechanism wise: regulative relationship is not balanced, therefore, regulative justice and balance cannot be guaranteed; legislative procedure isun-scientific, therefore, regulative authority and efficiency cannot be guaranteed; law enforcement procedure is also not standardized, therefore, regulative efficiency and stability are not guaranteed either.Regulation regime wise: all channels are defined as party organs and organizations sponsored by the state, therefore they lack both funds and creativity. Regulative party has also performed as a market entity; this causes frequent cases of injustice and corruption. As a result, TV media, deprived of normal rights of market entity, turn out to be affiliates of administrative organizations. Asserted management inevitably leads to local protectionism, hindering the forming of a nationally unified market and super-sized TV corporations. Advantage of industry consolidation, therefore, cannot turn out to be a reality.Therefore, Chinese TV regulation must undergo reforms.Regulation reform faces both supportive condition and obstacles. Four driving forces, namely the establishment of market economic regime, reform of government regime, initiation of reform of cultural regime, and pressure felt under international communication competition. At the same time, TV regulation faces 6 major obstacles, namely ideology security, transformation of governmental function, establishment of market entity, balance of interest, breakdown of administrative monopoly, and maturation of regulation and law enforcement.In the game of driving forces and obstacles, Chinese TV regulation reform is destined to be a slow and gradual process. Slowness, however, does not equal to a halt, regulation reform is inevitable in this era.Media idea innovation is the premise for TV regulation reform. TV industry cannot grow if "mouthpiece theory" is not to develop. We must correctly and comprehensively regard TV media's role, its changed function in this new era, and we must direct regulation reform with "soft-power theory".Under soft power theory, we should establish three innovative ideas.One is the idea of global existence. In the era of information globalization, media cannot exist in one nation only; it should exist in the whole global space. Therefore, on the one hand, domestic market needs to open up; on the other hand, domestic TV corporations ought to participate in the competition in international market.Second is the idea of social participation. This means that social capital outside TV system participates in TV media operation and independent ownership. Soft power is created by a joint effort of the government and the society, social forces, therefore are indispensable for constructing a nation's soft power.Third is the compatibleness of values. This is determined by domestic interest differentiation and complicated international environment. Core of soft power lies in compatibleness of value. China needs both modern values as well as post-modern values. We should tolerate domestic young generation as well as foreign TV viewers, try to understand their post-modernist values, and try to win the market war with eastern values.Chinese TV reform must focus on two major points: regime and mechanism.An ideal model for Chinese TV mechanism is: a sound combination of balanced relationship, lawful regulation, effective enforcement, and industry's self-discipline.Balanced relationship refers to the balance between regulative party, TV media, and TV viewers. Public interest must be satisfied. Lawful regulation refers to a proper degree of regulation and lawful regulative action. Effective enforcement means that regulative party has independence and authority, and it supervises and balance the regulation procedure. Industry's self-discipline and governmental regulation are two systems of industrial regulation, both for the purpose of restricting industrial actions. The former system also helps avoid over-involvement by the government and aims at bearing obliged social responsibility.Direction for regulative regime is: classified management, separation of the ruling party and market entity, and compatibleness of vertical management and hierarchical management.Classified management will not harm ideology security. It is because that, while public channel continues to function as an ideological tool; commercial channels will not successfully serve ideological purpose anyway.Separation of the ruling party and market entity aims at liberation production ability. This also will not harm ideology security. Such a separation does not mean the party will no longer rule the media, nor does it means a veto for the principle of "party-rules-the-media". There are varieties of ways to guarantee the safety of ideological security, for instance, content control, legislative control, and technological control.Compatibleness of vertical management and hierarchical management aims at solving the problem of market decentralization and meeting the needs of local administration. Compatibleness of vertical management and hierarchical management means the commercial channels will apply vertical management while the public channels hierarchical management. Vertical management is determined by the economic traits of TV industry. Commercial channel aims mainly at economic profit and vertical management is the base for a unified market.Hierarchical management is determined by the relationship between the central government and local government, and the need for TV by local administration.The dilemmas of Chinese TV industry result from the poor government regulation; the growth of TV industry, therefore, also relies on government's regulation reform.