How will China keep the lid on free access to info?
China starts seizing
satellite dishes
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have seized
satellite dishes and decoder boxes in a crackdown
on foreign television broadcasts, state television said
Thursday.
The crackdown, first signaled in the official media
last week, may have significant implications for
overseas broadcasters such as Phoenix Satellite
Television Co. Ltd. and Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN,
whose programs reach millions of Chinese viewers.
State television showed police carting away hundreds of satellite receivers,
dishes and decoder boxes from an illegal satellite TV company in the coastal
province of Fujian.
Foreign programs including, news, movies, variety and talk shows, are
reaching tens of millions of Chinese households illegally, much of it from
Chinese-speaking Taiwan.
Cardboard boxes of equipment shown being confiscated by the police were
clearly labeled ''made in Taiwan.''
Only tourist hotels and housing compounds for foreigners are allowed to
receive satellite signals. However, foreign programming is widely picked up
for rebroadcast by hundreds of cable television operators all over China.
The Beijing Daily published last Friday a 1993 State Council circular banning
unauthorized satellite reception and threatening fines and jail terms.
The newspaper carried the number of a telephone hotline encouraging citizens
to report on illegal broadcasts.
Hong Kong-based Phoenix, which is 45 percent owned by News Corp.,
along with News Corp.'s Star TV and other broadcasters have attracted a
host of Chinese advertisers through their lively content that contrasts with
China's own stodgy television fare.
Phoenix and Star TV are free-to-air, but other channels are being widely
viewed with encryption decoders.
It was not immediately clear how free-to-air broadcasts would be affected,
but one hotline operator said Phoenix would be targeted in the crackdown.
''This is not a really good time to say anything,'' said a spokeswoman on
Wednesday for Phoenix, which claims to reach 45 million Chinese homes.
''We hope that it won't affect us significantly,'' she said.
The clampdown comes in a politically sensitive year that includes the 10th
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 4, 1989, and the
50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic in October. |
