Charges Of Cable Digital Television Service And Related Policies Performance Appraisal: A Case Study Of Guangdong Province

Public Policy Performance Appraisal is an important area of government performanceevaluation. Different from the traditional evaluation, Public Policy Performance Appraisalfocus on public service and public’s satisfaction. Nowadays, TV is an important tool formillions of households’ access to information and entertainment. Research data shows that asof the end of November2009, China’s digital cable TV subscribers reached63.168million,accounting to38.65%of digital cable TV subscribers. According to the Radio, Film andTelevision Administration of Guangdong Province, the number of province’s digital TVsubscribers has exceeded5million at the end of November2009.Digital Cable TV charges, which are daily expenses, directly related to the vital interestsof millions households. Therefore, it is necessary to do a case study in Guangdong Provinceon the charges of cable digital television service and related policies Performance Appraisal.This article is a case study from the perspective of public satisfaction basing on a surveyin TV users of Guangdong Province. The author tries to summarize users’ attitudes,expectations and aspirations on the charges of cable digital TV service and related policies.Data shows that the vast majority of the surveyed households have TV sets.80%surveyed households already converted or are applying to be converted to digital cable TV.Survey demonstrates that more than half users confirm policy efficiency and fairness. Butmore than a quarter states that they could not remember whether have enjoyed preferentialpolicies, meaning that policy awareness still to be raised. Satisfaction survey data show thatuser satisfactions are narrowly the same in groups from different areas of GuangdongProvince. Moreover, the program content wins the highest satisfaction score. And users whoown two TV sets are more satisfied than other groups. And user satisfactions are related tomonthly family income. Data shows that more than30%users don’t trust in Price hearings,which is worthy of attention.In the end, this article gives some recommendations to improve the digital cable TVsubscription policy. First is to perfect pricing process, second is to improve service quality,third is to strengthen the policy oversight, fourth is to increase fee transparency, fifth is toenhance hearing credibility, and sixth is to introduce third-party evaluation.