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BBC AND CHINA: OPENING REMARKS TO FAC
By:
Bob Phillis
C/HK 119
Delighted to have this opportunity, since China is of central importance to the BBC as it is to the UK as a whole. China is, for the BBC, both a market into which we deliver a range of services and a country from which full journalistic coverage is vital to our ability to fulfil our objectives in relation to our audiences both at home and around the world.
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As a market for the BBC, the most striking aspect is our lack of detailed knowledge. It is ironic that, at a time when the World Service's measured regular radio audience has risen to 130 million, we still are not in a position to include a figure for our audience in the world's most populous country, However, if we did have such a figure the 130 million we currently claim would surely be very different. Our programmes in Mandarin, increased by half an hour to four hours daily at the beginning of this year, are the key to the audience. Clearly the authorities in Beijing agree. There has been sporadic but regular jamming of Mandarin short-wave transmissions from Hong Kong. In part to counter this and to improve our audibility generally, we are now hiring time on transmitters in Japan, South Korea and the FSU. However, in recent weeks the evidence suggests that jamming is now affecting all frequencies carrying Mandarin programmes. Until we can freely carry out audience research we can only estimate our impact, but in 1992 the Chinese Service received 35,000 letters, and a recent on-air request to listeners to write and say which frequencies they liked listening to best attracted 16,000 replies. The partial surveys that it has been possible to carry out up to now indicate that VOA is the BBC's main competition in Mandarin, and that the two are in close competition in spite of VOA having twice as many hours on air as the BBC.
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Competition is also coming increasingly from the Chinese domestic media, although this is stronger when it comes to broadcasts in Cantonese, since the broadcast media in Guangdong Province are both freer and more lively than anywhere else in the country. Some recent research has shown the BBC's penetration in Cantonese to be low, and for that reason we have recently increased the Cantonese transmission from 45 minutes to one hour and shifted it from evening to early morning. This reflects the importance we attach to making an impact in South China as 1997 approaches. Our Cantonese programmes also reach a significant audience in Hong Kong through rebroadcasting. This is not yet widespread inside China itself in either Mandarin or Cantonese, but there is some rebroadcasting of non- current affairs programmes in Mandarin, and Transcription Service sells music programmes to a number of stations in China.
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