| The year of 2008 is the fiftieth anniversary of China's television. Since its birth, China's television has witnessed a tremendous growth, but some issues still exists in TV transmission. China's TV programs have been more abundant, broadcast on national television channels have been close to 3,000 units, and the length of the television programme broadcast the whole year long close to nearly 14 million hours. However, the transmission of television programmes in some stations requires improvement. For instance, China Central Television, China Education Television, the provincial-level satellite TV, whose many programs have not been sent to the home of urban and rural residents in China. There're many television signal coverage blind areas in the country and this is the main problem lies in China's public service broadcasting. Therefore, the urgent tasks facing China's public service broadcasting are not shortage of programs but how to transmit the signals to the wider areas and more audience.Furthermore, TV technology continually expands the development of people's understanding of public service broadcasting. The traditional public service broadcasting provides the audience information, education and entertainment television programmes, whereas the technological progress of television transmission can make television provide emergency alerts and other services outside of television programmes. With the digitalization of broadcasting, some new modes of transmission of the television came into being, such as car television, in-elevator television, railways television, bus stop TV, mobile TV, and so on. How to use these new modes is a key problem facing public service broadcasting.On the special occasion of the year 2008, we should conduct two considerations: one is how to improve the extant public service broadcasting, the other is how to develop the new modes of public service broadcasting, which constitute two parts of my dissertation:The first part focuses upon the theoretical exploration of public service broadcasting and TV transmission. The aim is to study the composition of television transmission systems and the principles to television transmission system in the provision of public services. The influence of changing technology is also an emphasis of this part.The second part focuses upon the substantive research of television transmission, with the emphasis laid on the issues of China's television transmission, and puts forward the operation plan of China's television public service transmission system as well as the means of transmission of new TV public service innovation.The first part covers chapter 2 and 3; the second part covers chapter 4, 5, 6, and 7.The first part, first of all, explores the constitutions of the public service broadcasting, television transmission system, as well as the principles to be followed. The dissertation suggests that public service TV is divided into two parts: content services and transport services. The content services refer to the integration and production of television programs, that is, the production of a single program and the use of a certain arrangement of these programs will create a number of different positioning of the television channel. At present, in China, TV stations, among other broadcast sectors, undertake the integration and production of programs. The transport services means the transmission of television programs, that is, the integrated television signals will be soon transmitted to the audience on TV set via satellite, cable and terrestrial, and other means.At present, in China, Television transmission is mainly undertaken by the major cable networks, satellite communications, wireless transmitters, etc. TV transmission system is composed of four layers: the infrastructural layer, technology layer, operation layer and regulation layer composed. These layers are interacting and contacting, and collaborate to provide television transmission services.The dissertation suggests public service TV should be guided by four principles: universality, diversity, equality and the uniqueness, among which transport services should follow three principles: the universality, diversity, equality. The universality of public service TV means that of people around the country are able to watch television, that is to say, television signals are bound to transmit throughout the country. To achieve the universality of public service broadcasting, it is necessary to choose the right technology and operating methods and to expand and maintain television signal coverage so that more people will be able to watch television.The diversity of TV public service is the exacting demand not only for content services, but also for transport services. From the perspective of content services, it requires TV stations to produce the rich diversity of television programs to meet the different interests and needs the viewers. From the perspective of transport services, First of all, the diversity is reflected in the amount of channels which be transported to people, followed by different types of programs among the transmitted channels. Equalization of public service TV means that all the residents in different parts of regions enjoy equal to the television public services. TV public service equalization is not equal to the equalization of services that is relative. TV public service equalization does not exclude the gap, but to control the gap in the acceptable range. China's television public service equalization focuses on narrowing the gap of television services between the rural areas and urban areas.The economists in the West argue that public service is the provision of public goods that possess non-exclusive and non-competitive natures. Usually the change of the goods attributes means the change of the means of goods provision. The dissertation suggests that transform in television technology has changed the television properties of the materials so that the television has gradually changed from a purely public goods to quasi-public goods with the strong attributes of private property. As the application of the conditional access technology, the terrestrial, cable, satellite TV transmission means are all the exclusive natures, which means that it is can convenient to charge the users and therefore it has the technical feasibility to allow the market to participate in the supply of TV services. Another important impact upon TV public service from the technology alteration is, due to the video compression technology, the release of spectrum resources, a substantial increase in the number of available channels. As a result, commercial television was qualified to produce the diverse programs by beginning the theme channels for the provision of education, humanities, science and technology which were mainly provided by the public television stations traditionally.The second part offers a brief review of the development of China's television transmission system in the past five decades, then analyzes the existing issues in the light of the three principles of public services. First, in the realization of the principle of universality, national television coverage is needed to improve. In the realization of the principle of diversity, the coverage of public welfare programs in the country is limited, and the city's cable television management is less standardized, on the other hand, in the city there is a big gap between the city cable subscribers and users of wireless services.The dissertation investigates the above-mentioned causes on the basis of the four principles of TV transmission system. The author finds that technically cable and satellite transmission is overweighed, whereas terrestrial transmission is overlooked, and digital terrestrial television (DTT) conversion is not given enough priority. In regard to operating level, all parties from the community are mobilized and encouraged to participate, and then gradually develop to government-led level. Under the current policy, the public service television derives from a single source of funding, what's more, construction and operation and maintenance need to fully rely on the financial investment. The phenomenon of "re-building, light maintenance" exists in the Every Village Project of local radio and television departments, and the lack of self-development power appears after the completion of the project, not once the financial investment. As a result, it will be difficult to ensure the quality of service for every village, and to form"a long-term mechanism".For the three transmission methods of the terrestrial, cable and satellite, the management sectors of radio and television have taken the policies of different locations and operation. The terrestrial transmission is regarded as obligations of public service, and cable, satellite transmission can be carried out paid services. The dissertation suggests that non- scientific policy of different modes of transmission position from management sectors have slowed the development pace of the terrestrial television in China.In the management documents and regulations of radio and television industry, in addition to technical standards and technical specifications of the television transmission, laws and regulations involved in the television transmission services are rare. As for how to develop and manage the public service function of a new type of television transmission, there is no related regulations and policies at the present. The dissertation attempts to propose the innovation and strategic thinking of Chinese television transmission system in public services from the technical, operational and regulatory dimensions.There are four TV transmission system levels in the technical innovation: re-positioning technology, coordination three steps into two steps; the development of new features to exploration of new channels. The re-positioning technology refers to each transmission technology has the delivery function of public services, and should bear the obligation to provide public services. "Three-step and two-step" refers to the change of "three-step" strategy of cable - satellite - on the terrestrial, to " two-step" strategy of the cable, which aims to and on the ground "China's digital television broadcast of the to "cable on the terrestrial" to promote synchronous digitalization on the terrestrial teleivision. The dissertation suggests that the strategy of "encircling the cities from rural areas," should be taken to promote China's DTT, that is to say, first of all, digital terrestrial television should be started from rural areas and from the economically backward areas, then transfer to the provincial cities in the middle west regions, and finally realize the digitalization all over the country. The author also suggests that DTT should fully tap the potential of digital TV technology and develop a new DTT business so that the DTT and cable television in the city can form complementary services in content and competitive differentiation to meet the needs of different people, which will resulting fully utilization of valuable radio spectrum resources to accelerate the digitalization of broadcasting in China's overall pace.Development of New Features refers to the use of television transmission technology, to develop new features beyond the transport of television programs, focusing on the establishment of an emergency warning system of the China's radio and television.The innovation of operating system focuses on innovation through the formation of public service broadcasting's long-term mechanism. The dissertation suggests the way of Industry supporting the cause, that is, some of the funds from all levels of television advertising revenue are collected to set up national radio and television public service fund. Another direction of the operation innovation is,"industrialization of the cause,"that is to say,Every Village Project of rural radio and television is operated and managed by means of the industrialization of the way, and produce social capital and institutions, set up rural radio and television transmission limited liability company.As far as the innovation of monitoring level is concerned, the dissertation proposes the concrete operation programs called China's "Must Carry Rule" specific rules on the basis of the experience of Europe and the United States and other countries.The originalities of the dissertation are as follows:The originality of the research objective. Chinese scholars have been given little priority to television transmission research. To provide the public with public service broadcasting is essentially a process of transmission of television program from the public television institutions to the public. At present, in China, the study is focused on both ends of the dissemination process. One is the television program production or operation management; the other is the dissemination effect of television programs, but neglects the research of television transmission (that is, the spread channels). This dissertation will fill the gap in research of television transmission.The originality of research methods and tools. Television transmission, first of all, is a technical problem, but from the point of view of public service television, not just a technical issue. The transmission problems in public service broadcasting should be contrasted and analyzed by putting relevant factors of television transmission together, and the attention should be given to the mutual influence between the technology, operation and regulation. Therefore, the dissertation attempts to put technology, infrastructure construction, operation, investment and financing, management and many other elements related to television transmission and study them as a whole, and study the Chinese television transmission system controlled by a television public service requirement. Furthermore, the dissertation studies the change of the television public goods attribute under the technology changes by virtue of the theory of public goods of Public Economics in the West.The originality of research results. The dissertation proposes the public services principles of China's TV transmission, and explores the sources of the theory of the market-oriented public services television in the progressive realization of the digital television broadcasting only to break government-led financial package of thinking existing in the current domestic television public services. The dissertation also proposes the public services strategies of China's TV transmission system from three levels of technology, operation, regulation after deeply analyzing the causes of China's TV transmission system.The originality also lies in opportunities and challenges of public service television brought by the digital technology such as railway television, the in-elevator television, and emergency alert broadcasting system. All these have been included in the scope of public service broadcasting, and also study how to use these new forms of TV transmission to provide the information and entertainment services to the public. Therefore, the dissertation will fill a gap in research TV transmission services, and is far-reaching.
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