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You Think NBC Is Bad? You Haven't Seen CCTV.

By June Shih
Updated Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008, at 1:15 PM ET

Check out Slate's complete coverage of the Beijing Games.

To say that the airwaves are saturated with Olympics coverage here doesn't quite capture the feeling. Several of China Central Television's channels, as well as the local Beijing and other provincial channels, have given themselves over to 24/7 coverage of the games. Weeks before Friday's Opening Ceremony, we'd already seen endless rebroadcasts of the monthslong torch relay. Watch Torchbearer 61, a pudgy local government official, pass the torch to Torchbearer 62, a tall gangly European man from the United Nations! See the torch in the streets of Chengdu! And Tianjin! And in the outer Beijing Suburbs! And in Tianjin—again!

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Now that the games have actually started, a viewer can find live broadcasts of everything from archery to volleyball all day long. Television anchors are endlessly cuing up musical montages of Chinese gold medal performances in weightlifting, shooting, gymnastics, and diving. When not broadcasting events, Chinese programmers are filling the airwaves with features such as "Mothers Who Are Also Olympic Competitors" and "Kids Who Have Shaved the Olympics Logo Into Their Heads." Enthusiastic coverage is of course not unique to the Chinese—I remember watching my share of slo-mo U.S. medalist montages set to Whitney Houston's "One Moment in Time." But what's on television in China right now shows what happens when you combine tight state control with typically overwrought, patriotic sports coverage. CCTV is like NBC on steroids … and growth hormone, and EPO, and albuterol.

Having come to Beijing with my reporter husband (who's been scrambling from venue to venue, pulling stories together), my elderly, mobility-impaired parents, and a toddler who takes long naps in the afternoons, let's just say that I've had a lot of downtime in front of my Beijing boob tube. If you're going to rely on CCTV to bring you your Olympics, you've got to care about the Chinese teams. This, actually, is not a huge problem for me. I am an American, but I've rooted for the Chinese in Olympic sports since I was 12, when China sent its first full team to the Los Angeles Olympics. (Please don't revoke my citizenship.) I like to root for the underdog, and in 1984, the Chinese were the underdog against the dominant Americans, who racked up gold medal after gold medal in the wake of the Soviet boycott and were breathlessly lionized for it. As a Chinese-American kid, seeing people who looked like me win gold was inspiring. I fell in love with Li Ning, the gymnast who took home six medals that summer, so I was thrilled to see my seventh-grade crush, still looking fit and adorable at 45, flying around the circumference of the Bird's Nest to light the Olympic cauldron last week.

The other morning, even though we had beach volleyball tickets, the entire family decided to stay in and watch the men's gymnastics finals. The Chinese men were heavily favored—we didn't want to miss it. A few minutes in, we began to wish we were watching back home. "Where are the up-close-and-personal segments?" my sister asked. Sure, there was a bit of commentary, but none of the polish and packaging that you'd get from the folks at NBC. Not much history or background on the contestants beyond where in China they were born. And certainly no visits to hometowns and no proud, teary-eyed parents. Sure, these stories of sacrifice, injury, and adversity are cheesy, but they serve a necessary function, allowing you to identify with athletes whom you've never heard of before and probably won't hear from again. To find out more about China's top gymnast, Yang Wei, I had to go to the U.S. news sites for a biography.

Instead of soft-focus profiles, what you get from CCTV is raw, one-sided footage. Predictably, the cameras were trained exclusively on the Chinese gymnasts. During the early rotations, when the Chinese unexpectedly found themselves in fifth place, CCTV broadcast little or no footage of the teams in first, second, third, and fourth. Instead, even as the Chinese gymnasts waited for their scores, which often took several minutes, and other competitors were performing, the CCTV cameras stayed with them as they sat doing nothing. To fill the air, commentators offered thoughts such as "the team seems really tight. They really need to open up 100 percent. If they open up 100 percent, they will perform better." But we had no idea how well the other teams were performing. "Let's see some Americans!" my sister yelled.

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It was frustrating. While NBC is almost always U.S.-focused, they at least know that minutes spent focusing on an athlete waiting for a score does not make for good TV. They know how to tell a story, and that a competition needs competitors. That's the problem with taking away the free market: Any self-respecting, ratings-oriented broadcaster would have cut away to fit in somebody else's vault.

But CCTV couldn't bear to look away from its own team yesterday. It was a reminder that, at the end of the day, it's still a large cog in a giant propaganda machine. NBC is patriotic because patriotism sells; CCTV is patriotic because patriotism is the law. Telling a story is not CCTV's priority; it's conveying the glory of China and the Chinese regime. That's a lot less fun to watch than a sporting event.

Frustrations aside, the propaganda machine does kick up some more benign kitsch. My easy-listening heart warms each time I see "Beijing Welcomes You," a seven-minute song that seems to play on a continuous loop at certain times of the day. The video shows 100 of Greater China's pop stars singing a slightly saccharine, yet totally infectious, song celebrating the arrival of the games—who wouldn't be moved by the great Jackie Chan, standing on the Great Wall, turning to face the camera and reaching out his arms as he belts in Mandarin, "Beijing welcomes you. We've opened up our world to you."

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You Think NBC Is Bad? You Haven't Seen CCTV.

By June Shih
Updated Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008, at 1:15 PM ET

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Jacob Leibenluft is a writer from Washington, D.C. Tom Scocca is a writer in Beijing. June Shih is a lawyer and former Beijinger. Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School and co-author of Who Controls the Internet?

Entry 1: Photograph by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images. Entry 2: Photograph by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images. Entry 4: Photograph of Michael Phelps by Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images. Entry 5: Photograph of Vivian Lee by Hot Tang. Entry 6: Photograph of a man selling a ticket by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images. Entry 7: Photograph of the Beijing beach volleyball cheerleaders by Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

Damn! Must have taken forever to make that-- it hit every spot in Beijing that I've ever sought out, and then some. You'd think for a 7-minute song they could have aimed for less repetition, but this is, remember, a people who listen to and can sing all the songs of ABBA and The Carpenters without understanding a word, so it's perhaps understandable.

But I disagree about CCTV just a bit-- they've come very, very far in the last 15 years, and NBC has no excuse. Seriously, some of the commentary should be banned for posing health hazards to anyone listening. NBC coverage just stinks, whereas CCTV is trying to put out as much coverage as it can. Sometimes they have boring minutes of people standing and waiting, but is that worse than NBC's Games to Commercials ratio, which seems to be 1:15 or so?

--DuckworkerMike

(To reply, click here.)

The west has to wake up and understand that the world is now moving faster than the west expects or accepts. It is easy to go on spreading woolly idealistic conceptual jargon about the right kind of democracy and freedom. At the end of the day, are all people happy in the west and USA? Barring Scandinavian, Nordic and Dutch Europe the rest of the region is a mixed bag of discontent and discord. In the US the average quality of life is so varying it intrigues sometimes how there can be such a boast about US being a developed nation.

Freedom to talk is not license to only condemn and criticize. Whatever be the form of government the progress China has made is undeniable and visible. An average Chinese like any other average national expresses dismay and concern over policies and this is universal. The poor in US with no participation in the machinery of governing will be as disappointed and annoyed as any Chinese. Only difference is your media makes a business of everything including good and bad news. I will challenge the media to give reports on events of human condition whether local or international without pedaling products and services on the airways. The media should accept the professional responsibility of providing true and accurate reports about events and not use the opportunity to make exposes and start beating the chest.

Yes, Beijing is growing and it has pains. Did not New York suffer this after the great depression? I think people lived more miserable lives then and we only have pictures of their past. So please learn to admire what is good after hard work and effort and don't go on playing the lone man blocking the tank card. It is history and much has changed in sociology since then.

--subrashankar

(To reply, click here.)

A real criticism that could be made, but seems to be ignored, is this paradox between the "dynamic" booming development China and the "tendency to either modernize or tear down old structures". This is strange because part of the whole fangwen presentation of China is to show foreigners their great history -- their temples, and more temples. But along with this big emphasis on a grand history are these re-modeled, modern versions of their old buildings. How about writing about that inconsistency instead of just the "giant soulless block"...

--ArkhamEscapee

(To reply, click here.)

I am old enough to remember how the media treated China in the seventies. There was a simplistic fascination bordering on romanticism towards China, even with Mao, and the Red Guards. But as China developed, and becomes more successful, we have become more critical. To me, the June 4 incident paled in comparison to the tens of millions victimized during the decade of the Cultural Revolution, but where was the western media at that time? Also, isn't it offensive to see Mao's picture still prominently displayed at the Tian AnMen Square? Much more so for the Chinese people. That's akin to seeing Hitler's picture in Berlin and Stalin's in Moscow. Yet we see American network anchors broadcast in front of this symbol of evil. I have not heard the western media discuss the reason why it's still there. perhaps removing the picture will take away part of the unconscious resentment that the western media feels about China.

--jdfjdf

(To reply, click here.)

The whole 'meanness' of the media against China that the author mentions is really not about fairness. It's about competition. If they are going to compete with us for limited resources, we have to start by labeling them as some form of enemy. It's not about sharing resources, it's about making sure some upstart doesn't get a piece that should be rightfully yours.

--mallardsballadd

(To reply, click here.)

We hold China up to the same scrutiny with which we view ourselves. This motivation is sufficiently legitimate and, what's more, can easily be proven to be symmetrical in the way that China's coverage of "the West" is not. Should anyone doubt this fact, he'd only have to peruse China's risible and deluded reports on "Human Rights Abuses" in the United States, wherein press-freedom infractions are cited *from American media sources*. The genocide of Native Americans, the failure of America's heath care system which the author points to---these subjects receive exhaustive analysis in American discourse. The West ought to report on China as intrepidly as the West reports on itself. And the ultimate passive-aggressive implementation of the term "bashing", which deflects legitimate criticism as merely a "hate crime" is preposterous. If our criticisms appear to "Chinese eyes" excessive, much of this is due to the excessive praise they grant themselves in their domestic media. Try to excuse us if we momentarily disrupt your self-worship.

--AristophanicBirdsForGovernment

(To reply, click here.)

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