Ban vulgar commercials, says NPC deputy

Ban vulgar commercials, says NPC deputy

• Source: Global Times
• [09:52 March 09 2011]
• Comments

By Yang Jie

A deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) suggested that commercial advertisements be banned on CCTV-1 and local satellite TV stations, and that CCTV-1's programming should make way for news programs.

Fang Ming, an NPC deputy and an announcer from China National Radio, said Monday during the two sessions that television is full of vulgar commercials, including sexy advertisements and those for drugs and female underwear, while public interest ads are neglected, the Beijing Times reported.

Fang explained that only commercial-free TV channels can gain the public's trust and avoid sacrificing news impartiality for profit. He cited Japan's NHK and China's Chongqing satellite television channel as good examples. The latter stopped airing commercials starting this month and filled the spots with revolutionary songs and public interest ads.

Fang proposed that CCTV-1 follow Chongqing TV's lead, as well as only broadcasting news, even though CCTV already has a news channel. He also suggested satellite TV channels consider pulling commercials.

"He took NHK as an example while ignoring that it charges large fees from its viewers," Xu Wenguang, vice director of the programming department under CCTV-1, said via his sina.com microblog Tuesday. "TV stations will benefit if the cancelled ads are compensated by program viewing fees. But [we] have to ask the audience for their consent first."

"[The suggestion] is very ridiculous," said Liu Xiaoying, a journalism professor from the Communication University of China and a CCTV researcher. "How can a TV station operate normally without ads in a market economy?"

Without commercials, Liu said, the stations would depend on taxpayers to stay afloat, unless funds were approved to support them.