China Central Television

In 1990, CCTV subsidiary, CITVC,[11] established China Television Corporation in California to distribute CCTV content in the U.S.[16] In 2000, CCTV's all-English channel, known as CCTV-9 or CCTV International, was launched.[17]

In 2001, the Great Foreign Propaganda Plan was launched by Xu Guangchun, the head of SARFT, also the deputy head of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party after the urgency of bringing the voice of China to the world was presented by Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. The idea of an English channel was brought out in 1996. CCTV-4 had three half-hour English news broadcasting every day, but later, on 25 September 2000, CCTV-9 a satellite channel was set up to be the first 24-hour English channel, aimed to establish the overseas market. In October 2001, CCTV partnered with AOL Time Warner and other foreign news corporations, giving them access to the Chinese media market in exchange for cable delivery in the US and Europe, mainly delivering CCTV-9 programs.[18]

The CCTV-4 channel split into three separate channels on 1 April 2007—each serving different time zones: China Standard Time (CST), Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), and Eastern Standard Time (EST)—in order to improve service for audiences around the world.[19]

On 25 July 2009, CCTV launched its Arabic-language international channel, stating that it aims to maintain stronger links with Arab nations.[20][21][22]

In 2015 and 2018, CCTV signed cooperation agreements with Russian state media outlet RT.[23][24][25]

In December 2016, CCTV's foreign language services were spun off into China Global Television Network (CGTN).[17]

Lassina Zerbo interviewed by China Central Television

China Network Television (CNTV) was an internet-based broadcaster of China Central Television which launched on 28 December 2009.[26]

On 9 February 2009, the Beijing Television Cultural Center caught fire on the last day of the festivities of Chinese New Year, killing one firefighter.[27] The blaze rendered the 42-story structure unusable, as the zinc and titanium alloy of the outer skin was burnt.[27] The Mandarin Oriental Hotel was destroyed before its expected 2009 opening.[27]

The fire had implications for the credibility of CCTV, which was already unpopular because of its dominance in the media.[28] The incident was mocked by netizens who reproduced photoshopped photos of the fire and criticised CCTV for censoring coverage. Pictures of the fire are widely distributed on the internet, as a result of citizen journalism.[29]

During the 2011 military intervention in Libya, reports from CCTV tended to support Muammar Gaddafi's arguments, claiming that the coalition forces attacked Libyan civilians and the military intervention was no different from an invasion. In some of the news reports, CCTV used images of demonstrators and said that they were against NATO's military intervention. CCTV also mislabeled a person holding a banner which said "Vive la France" ("long live France" in French) and claimed that he was a supporter of Gaddafi. Later on 27 March, a Chinese banner that said "Muammar Gaddafi is a lier. [sic]" was shown in some Libyan demonstration videos on the Internet.[30]

In 2019, CCTV announced that they were cancelling the broadcast of two National Basketball Association preseason games in response to a tweet by the General Manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, in support of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. After Adam Silver defended the General Manager's right to free speech, CCTV responded with, "We express our strong dissatisfaction and opposition to Silver's stated support of Morey's right to free speech. We believe any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability do not belong to the category of free speech," and continued, "We will also immediately examine all other cooperation and exchanges with the NBA."[31]

During the 2022 Winter Paralympics, CCTV censored a speech by International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons condemning the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[32][33] CCTV promoted Russian disinformation such as unsubstantiated claims of biological weapons labs in Ukraine.[34][35][36][37] In April 2022, CCTV repeated Russian claims that the Bucha massacre was staged.[38]

The current president of CCTV is Shen Haixiong, who was appointed in February 2018.[40]

In 2007, China's television audience rose to 1.2 billion.[45] The 2008 Summer Olympics coverage on CCTV resulted in an aggregate 41% audience share across its network.[46] As content becomes more diversified, there have been concerns about the audience share, as CCTV is losing out to cable, satellite and regional networks.[47] In Guangzhou for example, CCTV programming only accounts for 45% of the weekly audience share,[48] while in Shanghai, local stations also have share over CCTV.[49] However, the CCTV New Year's Gala remains extremely popular; it acquires more than 90% audience share over the nation.[44]

Producing a variety of different programming, China Central Television has a number of different program hosts, news anchors, correspondents, and contributors who appear throughout daily programing on the network.[50]

Since its inception CCTV has served as a tool of state power and as such has been complicit in human rights abuses. They have a history of demonizing and inciting hatred against those perceived as foes by the CCP, in this way they can be used to mobilize against threats as diverse as Falun Gong and international Human Rights Groups.[4]

In 1999, during the first crackdown on Falun Gong, CCTV's Focus Talk ran 28 episodes over a 32-day period which defamed practitioners and incited hatred against them.[53] In 2001, they deceptively claimed that a group of people who had set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square were Falun Gong adherents, a claim which was characterized as "clearly abusive" by the Canadian regulatory commission.[4]

On 27 December 2007, Xinwen Lianbo aired a report about the wide and easy availability of explicit content on the internet. The report appealed to juristic institutions and government to hurry to make relevant legislation in order to purify the internet environment. In the report, a young student described a pop-up advertisement she saw as being "very erotic very violent".[58] After the airing of the report, many parodies were posted by internet users ridiculing the comment and CCTV's credibility in part.[59] The incident also questioned the reliability of Xinwen Lianbo, noting the unlikelihood of a web page being both violent and erotic at the same time (even though such pages do exist), and the age of the student interviewed. Personal information of the interviewed girl was later also leaked, identifying the girl in the report by name.[60] Online message boards were populated by large threads about the incident,[61] and a satirical work even stated that CCTV's website was the number one "very erotic very violent" website on the internet,[62] with some users even creating their own toplists of sites which meet these criteria,[63] the "top 8 very erotic very violent sports events"[64] and even identifying things that are yellow as being erotic (since 黄, huáng, the Chinese character for "yellow", also means "erotic").[65]

On 23 January 2011, Xinwen Lianbo showcased the Chengdu J-10 firing a missile at a plane, causing it to explode. The footage lasted half a second and the destroyed plane shown was later identified as that of an F-5E, a US fighter jet. The clip was later revealed to have been taken from the 1986 US movie Top Gun.[66][67]

In 2011, the new CCTV head Hu Zhanfan "was found to have proclaimed in July [or January,[68] both before the CCTV appointment in November] that journalists' foremost responsibility is to 'be a good mouthpiece'"[69] (当好喉舌工具). Internet posts of the comment blossomed after the appointment, one "juxtapos[ing] CCTV's ... Xinwen Lianbo (新闻联播) and photos of Chinese crowds waving red flags with black-and-white images from Nazi-era Germany". Comparisons with the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels (gepei'er (戈培尔)) also spread. Official media coverage of the Zhanfan's presentation focused on his call to avoid "fake news and false reports (失实报道)" but also incorporated the "mouthpiece" comment.[68]

CCTV regularly broadcasts the forced confessions of accused or convicted criminals and produces programming to go along with them.[70] These programs are often filmed before the beginning of formal judicial procedures.[71] Domestic dissidents such as lawyers, journalists, and activists as well as foreigners have been the victim of this practice.[72][73][74]

In 2013 Peter Humphrey and Charles Xue's forced confessions were aired on CCTV.[71] Since being freed, Humphrey has been highly critical of CCTV and the practice of airing forced confessions.[75] In 2020, the British media regulator Ofcom sided with Humphrey and announced sanctions against CGTN, which aired Humphrey's confession and was branded as CCTV News at the time.[76][77]

In 2014, CCTV broadcast the forced confession of the then-septuagenarian journalist Gao Yu.[72]

In 2016, Peter Dahlin and Gui Minhai's forced confessions were aired on CCTV.[71] In 2019 Dahlin filed a complaint against China Global Television Network (CGTN) and China Central Television-4 (CCTV-4) with Canadian authorities.[78]

On 21 November 2019, CCTV's international arm CGTN aired a video of a forced confession from Hong Kong activist Simon Cheng. Within a week, Cheng had filed a new complaint to Ofcom over the broadcast.[79]

In 2020, the forced confession of Taiwanese citizen Lee Meng-chu was aired on a CCTV program. A day later, the same program aired the forced confession of an academic from Taiwan accused of espionage and separatist activities.[80]