There are over 3,000

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

s in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

China National Radio China National Radio (CNR; ) is the national radio network of China, headquartered in Beijing. CNR forms the national radio service of the state-owned China Media Group (also known as the "Voice of China"). History The infrastructure began wi ...

, the nation's official radio station, has eight channels, and broadcasts for a total of over 200 hours per day via satellite. Every province, autonomous region and municipality has local broadcasting stations.

China Radio International China Radio International (CRI) is the state-owned international radio broadcaster of China. It is currently headquartered in Babaoshan, Shijingshan, Beijing. It was founded on December 3, 1941, as Radio Peking. It later adopted the pinyin fo ...

(CRI), the only national overseas broadcasting station, is beamed to all parts of the world in multiple languages.

History of radio broadcasting

Republic of China

The

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

established The Nationalist Government Radio Station in 1928; it was a major mechanism for disseminating ROC propaganda messages.

People's Republic of China

In December 1949, the PRC established the Central Broadcasting Station. In 1950, approximately 1 million radio sets existed in China, mostly in

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

urban households. The People's Republic of China began establishing a radio reception network assigning "radio receptionists" in schools, army units, and factories. These receptionists organized group listening sessions and also transcribed and distributed written content of radio broadcasts. Through the practice of rooftop broadcasting, village criers using homemade megaphones would also relay the content of radio broadcasts. Radio receptionists and rooftop broadcasting remained a significant component of broadcasting practices until wireless broadcasting became widespread in the 1960s and 1970s. In April 1950, the Central Broadcasting Station's international department (branded as

Radio Beijing China Radio International (CRI) is the state-owned international radio broadcaster of China. It is currently headquartered in Babaoshan, Shijingshan, Beijing. It was founded on December 3, 1941, as Radio Peking. It later adopted the pinyin f ...

) began broadcasting for listeners in Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, and in four dialects for

overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese people are Chinese people, people of Chinese origin who reside outside Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. As of 2023, there were 10.5 milli ...

throughout

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

. Radio networks grew along with rural collectives in the late 1950s. By 1959, 9,435 communes and 1,689 counties had wired relay stations, and these linked 4,570,000 wired loudspeakers. In 1978, China stopped jamming broadcasts from

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...

(VOA). VOA opened a bureau in Beijing in 1981. In 1982, Radio Peking and VOA began regular exchanges. In 1998, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) began the Connecting Every Village with Radio and TV Project, which extended radio and television broadcasting to every village in China.

Radio manufacturing

In the 1950s and 1960s, Red Star Radios became one of the Four Big Things, important and desirable consumer goods that demonstrated an increase in Chinese standards of living. Radio manufacturing expanded significantly during China's Third Front campaign to develop basic industry and national defense industry in China's rugged interior in case of invasion by the Soviet Union or the United States. In the Third Front regions, radio manufacturing increased by 11,668% percent as a result of the campaign. By

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

, battery-powered transistor radios, microphones, mobile public address systems, and loudspeakers had penetrated even remote areas.

References

{{Authority control

History of radio broadcasting

Republic of China

People's Republic of China

Radio manufacturing

See also

References