CGTN is the English-language news channel of state-run China Global Television Network, based in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, China. It is one of several channels provided by China Global Television Network, the international division of Chinese state broadcaster

China Central Television China Central Television (CCTV) is the State media, national television broadcaster of China, established in 1958. CCTV is operated by the National Radio and Television Administration which reports directly to the Publicity Department of th ...

(CCTV), under the control of the Central Propaganda Department of the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

. CCTV-9 was launched on 25 September 2000, rebranded as CCTV News on 26 April 2010. On 6 February 2012, CGTN America. On 8 October 2019, CGTN Europe was launched, with a schedule of daily programming originating from a production center in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

On 11 January 2012, CCTV Africa was launched in

Nairobi, Kenya Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city lies in the south-central part of Kenya, at an elevation of . The name is derived from the Maasai phrase , which translates to 'place of cool waters', a reference to the Nairobi Riv ...

. All channels and divisions in the CCTV International group were rebranded as CGTN on 31 December 2016. CGTN currently has four studios: Beijing (headquarters), Nairobi, Washington and London as well as 70 bureaux around the world.

History

CCTV began considering English-language international news programming on 1 January 1979, at the start of the

Chinese economic reform Reform and opening-up ( zh, s=改革开放, p=Gǎigé kāifàng), also known as the Chinese economic reform or Chinese economic miracle, refers to a variety of economic reforms termed socialism with Chinese characteristics and socialist marke ...

period. English news bulletins began on

CCTV-2 CCTV-2 is a Chinese free-to-air television channel operated by China Central Television in the People's Republic of China. The channel broadcasts programs on the business news, economic information, stock market data, business and industry economi ...

in 1986 and became available to overseas viewers when they moved to CCTV-4 in February 1991. CCTV-9 began broadcasting across China on 25 September 2000, becoming the country's first all-English television station. On 1 January 2003, CCTV-9 entered the United States cable market, as part of a deal that allowed AOL,

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City. It was established as Time Warne ...

, and

News Corporation The original incarnation of News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp. and also variously known as News Corporation Limited) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media corporation founded and controlled by media mogul Ru ...

access to cable systems in

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

. In its early years, CCTV-9 broadcast English language news bulletins and cultural interest shows for most of each day, and aired mostly

rerun A rerun or repeat is a rebroadcast of an episode of a radio or television program. The two types of reruns are those that occur during a hiatus and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Variations In the United Kingdom, the word "repe ...

s during the overnight hours in China. One of its biggest projects was covering the

2008 Beijing Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

. Until 26 April 2010, CCTV-9 was a mixed general interest channel featuring news, travel programming, and language training. On that date it was rebranded as CCTV News, a 24-hour English-language news service.

Relaunch

The channel name of CCTV-9 was changed to CCTV News on 26 April 2010. Some shows were rebranded while other new programs were added. The English website is managed by

China Network Television China Network Television (CNTV; ) was a Chinese national web-based TV broadcaster of China Central Television from 2009 to 2017. CNTV International offered 6 local language services ( Chinese, Mongolian in Mongol script, Tibetan, Kazakh, ...

(CNTV), a web streaming service of CCTV. On 1 January 2011, the channel's former name CCTV-9 was taken over by CCTV's two documentary channels.

CGTN

On 31 December 2016, the channel was rebranded again as CGTN.

Ofcom license revocation

On 4 February 2021,

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

withdrew CGTN's UK broadcaster license. Ofcom concluded a company called Star China Media Limited held the broadcast license for CGTN but "did not have editorial responsibility", and thus it did not meet legal requirements. The programming is claimed to be controlled by a company called China Global Television Network Corporation. The regulator said it was unable to transfer the license to that company because it is "ultimately controlled by the

, which is not permitted under UK broadcasting law". In most of Europe, distribution of the CGTN channel was permitted because it held a UK license, and unless CGTN obtained a license in another European country it had to go off air across most of Europe. The channel eventually obtained a new license through the French broadcast regulator CSA in March 2021. In response to the Ofcom revocation, China banned

BBC World News BBC News is an international English-language pay television channel owned by BBC Global News Ltd. – a subsidiary of BBC Studios – and operated by the BBC News division of the BBC. The network carries news bulletins, documentaries, an ...

from airing in

mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

, which was soon followed upon by

RTHK Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service of Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Econom ...

withdrawing distribution of BBC's content in Hong Kong.

CGTN Africa

CGTN Africa is CGTN's African news productions center which was launched in Kenya on 11 January 2012. CGTN Africa produces daily news, business and culture shows, including Africa Live, Talk Africa, Global Business Africa and Faces of Africa, which are broadcast through CGTN's English news channel.

CGTN America

CGTN America is the Americas division of CGTN that began broadcasting on 6 February 2012. It is based in

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

and runs bureaus in North and South America. The service employs American and Chinese journalists and produces Americas-based programs for CGTN and CCTV. The

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

ordered CGTN America to register as a

foreign agent A foreign agent is any person or entity actively carrying out the interests of a foreign principal while located in another host country, generally outside the Diplomatic immunity, protections offered to those working in their official capacity fo ...

under the

Foreign Agent Registration Act The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) ( ''et seq.'') is a United States law that imposes public disclosure obligations on persons representing foreign interests.Chiswick Business Park in west

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. CGTN first moved into the office in January 2018 and planned to begin broadcasts by the end of the year, although issues which included "obtaining visas for top managers and setting up technology" eventually delayed its launch to October 2019. Despite Ofcom's revocation of CGTN's broadcast license, a person briefed on the channel's strategy said it "would not impact the production centre, GTNwould just need to reorientate itself to produce more content for Europe."

Foreign news anchors

In addition to Chinese anchors, CGTN employs foreigners as news presenters, some of whom have extensive experience, such as Edwin Maher (a former newsreader and weatherman from the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is ...

), while others may be recent university graduates just embarking upon their careers. Former comptroller Jiang Heping defended the policy of putting foreigners on air, arguing that "we feel international on-air personalities boost the credibility of CGTN and befit its image as an international channel. In this regard, CGTN will not restrict the origin of its employees and choose to build its unique identity through its programming." Another prominent personality in CCTV-9's first decade was Mark Rowswell, otherwise known as

Dashan Mark Henry Rowswell, CM (born May 23, 1965), known by his Chinese stage name Dashan (), is a Canadian performer and television personality who gained prominence in China. He became known in the late 1980s through regular appearances on China C ...

. He hosted ''Travel in Chinese'' on CCTV News and has been honored for his work in promoting cancer awareness in China. On 18 September 2019, Nick Pollard, a veteran British TV executive, resigned from his post as consultant and advisor to CGTN, giving his reason for leaving as being CGTN's failure to comply with Ofcom's rules on impartiality in connection to its coverage of the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. He had joined CGTN in December 2018.

Detention of Cheng Lei

In mid-August 2020,

Cheng Lei Cheng Lei (; born on August 26, 1971) is a Chinese television presenter. Cheng Lei was a student in Shanghai Theater Academy in the 1990s. After graduation, he was chosen as a host for ''Broken Brain'' (智力大沖浪) by Shanghainese producer ...

, an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n journalist who since 2012 worked for CGTN as an anchor for a business show, was detained by Chinese authorities and charged in February 2021 with sharing state secrets, with no further information being provided. Soon after Cheng was detained, two Australian journalists working in China fled the country after being questioned by authorities on national security grounds, leaving Australia's media without any journalists working in China for the first time in nearly 50 years. CGTN has deleted all reference to Cheng from its website and social media, and has not made any report or comment on Cheng's detention.

Awards

The channel's Washington, DC–based broadcast center, CGTN America, has won a News & Documentary

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award catego ...

for ''Jen Bricker: When Can't is a Four-Letter Word'', as well as multiple New York Festivals medals and White House News Photographers Association awards.

Reception

Bias and censorship

Observers have noted that the "aim f CGTNis to influence public opinion overseas in order to nudge foreign governments into making policies favourable towards China’s Communist party" through subtle means. Researchers Thomas Fearon and Usha M. Rodrigues argued that CGTN has a "dichotomous role as a credible media competing for audience attention on the world stage, and a vital government propaganda organ domestically." According to James Palmer at ''

Foreign Policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

'', the contrasting aims of RT (formerly Russia Today) and CGTN, "mirrors wider strategies: Moscow wants chaos it can exploit, while Beijing wants a stable world order—on its terms". While RT doesn't mind whether it goes to the far-left or the far-right, Chinese state media is permitted to "act from a very narrow, officially approved scope, and the risk of the political extremes is too much," according to journalist Hilton Yip. On the contrary to CGTN's investments in studios and numerous overseas bureaus, "the actual content is a mix of brutally tedious propaganda and bland documentaries. The audience is always the bosses in Beijing, not the average viewer overseas". Yip also noted the growing disillusionment of journalists in China who "are allowed to do little more than parrot the official line", citing a viral video of a journalist rolling her eyes at another reporter's softball question during a ministerial press conference, which "seemed to speak for many in the country who are tired of the charade that local media has become". Despite a decade of overseas expansion, the redoubling of efforts by CGTN, and to an extension other state media, to push the party's theories and principles abroad is at odds with boosting China's overseas image. CGTN, along with other Chinese state media outlets, is still widely regarded as "editorially biased and full of propaganda, and they still struggle to attract large audiences", particularly in the age of widespread internet use with social media and nontraditional forms of media where the public has become "more averse to clumsy state-run propaganda than ever". Despite its revamp launching of CCTV America, critics have voiced concerns over the level of censorship exercised by the channel, especially on sensitive domestic issues in China. Philip Cunningham of Cornell University, who has appeared more than 100 times on China Central Television talk shows, noted that sensitive issues such as Tibet and Xinjiang were heavily edited on various programs. Ma Jing, Director of CCTV America defends the channel against such allegations by saying that the channel edits stories the same way other news organizations do. She said: "We uphold the traditional journalistic values. We consider accuracy, objectivity, truthfulness, and public accountability very important, more important than anything else." In March 2021, CGTN was fined £225,000 by

for bias in its coverage of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, which was found to have repeatedly breached fairness and impartiality requirements.

Accessory to torture and forced confessions

On 23 November 2018, a British corporate investigator named Peter Humphrey submitted a formal complaint to the United Kingdom's government communications regulator The Office of Communications, or Ofcom, maintaining he was forced under duress to confess on air over Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television's (CCTV) network and that, as the confession was subsequently broadcast over the international arm of CCTV, China Global Television Network (CGTN), CGTN itself should be held culpable by Ofcom and denied the right to operate its broadcast service in the U.K. Humphrey's complaint cited two films produced by CCTV and additionally aired in the UK by CGTN, stating that both were scripted and directed by the Chinese police, the public security bureau, while he was a prisoner, in conditions of duress amounting to

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

. One such confession, staged in August 2013, was filmed by a CCTV crew with Humphrey locked in an iron chair inside a steel cage, wearing handcuffs and an orange prison vest. This was before he had been indicted, tried or convicted of a crime. The second, in July 2014, was once again filmed by CCTV, not in a cage this time, but still in a prison vest and handcuffs, before he had been tried or convicted on the charge of illegal information gathering. Ofcom said it would investigate the complaint and would "take necessary enforcement action" if rules are determined to have been violated. In November 2019, CGTN aired a video of a UK consular employee,

Simon Cheng Simon Cheng Man-kit ( zh, 鄭文傑; born 10 October 1990) is a Hong Kong activist. He was formerly a trade and investment officer at the British Consulate-General in Hong Kong. Cheng was detained by Chinese authorities in August 2019 in Wes ...

, in captivity "confessing" to consorting with prostitutes. Within a week, Cheng had filed a new complaint to Ofcom. On 8 March 2021, CGTN was fined a total of £225,000 by Ofcom for serious breaches of fairness, privacy and impartiality rules. “We found the individuals (

and

Gui Minhai Gui Minhai (, formerly ; born 5 May 1964), also known as Michael Gui, is a Hong Kong-Swedish book publisher and writer. He is an author of many books related to Chinese politics and Chinese political figures; Gui authored around 200 books du ...

) concerned were unfairly treated and had their privacy unwarrantably infringed,” Ofcom said, adding that the broadcaster had “failed to obtain their informed consent to be interviewed.” It concluded that “material facts which cast serious doubt on the reliability of their alleged confessions” had been left out of its programing, which aired pretrial “confessions” of the two men while they were being detained. Ofcom said it was considering further sanctions. On 4 February 2021, CGTN had its license to broadcast in the United Kingdom revoked by broadcasting regulator

after an investigation found that its license was held by

Star China Media Star China Media (), also known as Star (CM) Holdings, is a PRC, Chinese media company owned by China Media Capital. The company operates television channels Xing Kong and Channel V, Channel V Mainland China, and maintains Fortune Star film lib ...

, which exercised no editorial oversight over CGTN. Ofcom subsequently imposed fines on CGTN. An open letter calling for Ofcom to reverse its revocation decision was signed by the editor of the left-wing '' Morning Star'', Ben Chacko, along with journalists

John Pilger John Richard Pilger (; 9 October 1939 – 30 December 2023) was an Australian journalist, writer, scholar and documentary filmmaker. From 1962, he was based mainly in Britain. He was also a visiting professor at Cornell University in New York. ...

, Jonathan Cook and Kerry-Anne Mendoza, film directors

Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born ) is an American filmmaker. Stone is an acclaimed director, tackling subjects ranging from the Vietnam War and American politics to musical film, musical Biographical film, biopics and Crime film, crime dramas. He has ...

and

Ken Loach Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a retiredhttps://variety.com/2024/film/global/ken-loach-retirement-the-old-oak-jonathan-glazer-oscars-speech-1235956589/ English filmmaker. His socially critical directing style and socialist views ar ...

, rapper and activist

Lowkey Kareem Dennis (born 23 May 1986), better known by his stage name Lowkey, is a British rapper and activist from London. He first became known through a series of mixtapes he released before he was 18, before taking a hiatus from the music busi ...

, and writer and activist

Tariq Ali Tariq Ali (;; born 21 October 1943) is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the ''New Left Review'' and ''Sin Permiso'', and co ...

. In March 2021, Australian public broadcaster

Special Broadcasting Service The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is an Australian hybrid-funded public broadcasting, public service broadcaster. About 80 percent of funding for the company is derived from tax revenue. SBS operates six TV channels (SBS (Australian TV chann ...

suspended news bulletin broadcasts from CGTN and CCTV due to complaints of forced confessions.

Accusation of antisemitism

In May 2021, during the

2021 Israel–Palestine crisis The 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, sometimes called the Unity Intifada, was a major outbreak of violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that mainly commenced on 10 May 2021, and continued until a ceasefire came into effect on 21 May. I ...

, Israel's embassy in Beijing accused CGTN of "blatant antisemitism" when host Zheng Junfeng speculated on the origins of the

Israel lobby in the United States The Israel lobby in the United States comprises individuals and groups who seek to influence the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government to better serve the interests of Israel. The largest American pro-Israel lobbying g ...

and its connection to wealthy

American Jews American Jews (; ) or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% id ...

, which Israel characterized as an

antisemitic canard Antisemitic tropes, also known as antisemitic canards or antisemitic libels, are " sensational reports, misrepresentations or fabrications" about Jews as an ethnicity or Judaism as a religion. Since the 2nd century, malicious allegations of ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:CGTN World China Global Television Network channels International broadcasters 24-hour television news channels in China English-language television stations Foreign television channels broadcasting in the United Kingdom Television channels in the Netherlands Television channels in Belgium Television channels in Flanders Television channels and stations established in 1997 1997 establishments in China