For those who still think the days of nation-states are over, may sound rear to hear that two of the international news networks in the world belong to state governments. Namely BBC and Al Jazeera. And it seems like we have a new guy in town: China Central Television. Check this Foreign Policy article:
These are gloomy days for the global media, but you wouldn't know it from looking at China, where the government has reportedly earmarked RMB45 billion ($6.58 billion) for the international expansion of state broadcasting. As part of this push, China Central Television, or CCTV, and Xinhua news agency will produce content in different languages for both Western and Asian audiences. CCTV, which is preparing to move into a new $700 million headquarters in downtown Beijing, has already opened French and Spanish channels and will soon broadcast in Russian and Arabic. Xinhua will reportedly launch a 24-hour English-language news station modeled on Qatar's Al Jazeera that will broadcast news and features from China and compete with CNN and BBC. It will expand its overseas bureaus from 100 to 186. On the print side, China Daily, the state-owned English newspaper, recently opened a Washington bureau and launched a U.S. edition. In April, the Communist Party's mouthpiece, People's Daily, launched China's second major English daily, Global Times.
If there were ever a time for the Chinese press to make inroads into global journalism, it's now, as the death knell sounds for traditional media around the world and a state-financed newcomer has little competition. The big state media companies have already begun looking for international media assets, and CCTV's English channel has developed an audience in Africa and Asia. Observers suggest Chinese media could follow the same path as Al Jazeera, which was met with skepticism just over a decade ago but is now a global news player. So, will media consumers one day find boxes of Global Times on New York street corners? Will viewers in the United Kingdom flip between BBC, Al Jazeera and China TV? Most importantly, will the PR campaign influence the way we think about China?....
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