State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) has officially launched CCTV America in its bid to capture a greater share of the global audience. The new operation, located out of a brand new studio in Washington DC, will be produced by about 100 journalists in 15 bureaus in North and South America, offering viewers four hours of programming daily in three programmes: Biz Asia America, a business news broadcast; The Heat, a talkshow; and Americas Now, a news magazine programme. more ›

What the what?! Apparently Warrent Buffet has already sent in a video of himself singing and playing guitar for this year's CCTV Spring Festival Gala, to be aired on a special web broadcast on New Year's Day (January 23.) more ›

CCTV5, China's national sports channel, decided to cease coverage of the country's best-supported pro sports league towards the end the 2008 in response to a disorderly occurence which took place during a Beijing Guoan - Wuhan FC match. CCTV bigwigs, and presumably all those tuning in at home, were left spluttering into their teacups in disgust when a fracas broke out between Wuhan's big money signing Li Weifeng and Beijing's Lu Jiang. The on-field rumpus which ensued led to the Hubei province-based team pulling out of the CSL in protest at the CFA's decision to ban Li Weifeng for eight matches as punishment for his misdemeanours. more ›

Warning: The following video contains graphic images not suitable for all viewers. If you have children with you, please lock them out of your room before clicking on this video. more ›

Hell hath no fury like a CCTV reporter scorned. We told you previously about the 35 security guards who attacked three young men outside a KTV in Kunming, leaving one dead and two hospitalised, only to realise later that they had beaten up the wrong guys. To clear things up, the Kunming Public Security Bureau and Dabanqiao Neighbourhood Committee Office held a press conference which lasted all of five minutes yesterday. And what a catastrophe it was. more ›

China took one step closer to a future space station last night, with the successful launch of their Tiangong-1 space lab module. The most exciting (and brow-raising) bit about CCTV's (rather drab) coverage last night was their strange CGI rendition in which America, the Beautiful was used as their space launch music (see video on right)! Back in 1970 when China's first rocket was launched, notes The Guardian, the music of choice was the Cultural Revolution song The East is Red. How far we've come since then!!! more ›

Just one day after we questioned what kind of evidence Jon Huntsman had when he claimed the Chinese government was behind a swath of cyber attacks directed at the United States, the Falun Gong mouthpiece Epoch Times caught a glimpse of a hacking program inadvertently shown in a CCTV military documentary. Could this be an example of the definitive proof we've all been waiting for? more ›

Elyse Ribbons shares with us this cute little video featuring snippets of Outlook English, an English-language talent competition organised by national broadcaster CCTV for young people, where she appeared as a "celebrity judge". Which "talents" are your favourites? more ›

And the clampdown has begun. more ›

By now, as you may imagine, the Ministry of Truth, aka Propaganda Bureau, has lost a pretty significant part of its ability to control media coverage of the Wenzhou train crash. Journalists are defying earlier orders by the bureau to not "investigate the causes of the accident" and to “use information released from authorities as standard”. They have also taken to Sina Weibo to release tidbits of information they have discovered in the course of their investigation that they may or may not succeed in getting to print. more ›

Gays and lesbians across China were left pleasantly stunned last evening by an unexpected report from national broadcaster CCTV which not only slammed award-winning actress Lü Liping (吕丽萍) for stoking homophobia, but also assured members of the LGBT community of their place in society. more ›

The chief justice of Xiangyang, Fan Haitao (范海涛) has been busted for checking in to a hotel for a rendezvous with the discipline secretary of the Fancheng district court, Liu Huamei (柳华梅), who was apparently promoted by him not so long ago. more ›

Rui Chenggang, the host of CCTV's BizChina, has decided very suddenly to take up the cause of criticizing luxury goods and how the rich use them to keep everyone else down probably. On his Weibo, Rui criticized China's consumption of luxury goods and the brands that supply those goods, specifically Hermes. "The Hermès Birkin handbag and the leather 'H' belt are strong weapons for China's nouveau riche and socialites to show off their wealth," which is kind of the idea of buying a Birkin handbag. Rui also said in the west, Birkin handbags are "just used by a few middle-age women." But Rui wasn't done being angry at luxury goods. He then put up a poll called "The Ten Most Vulgar Luxury Brands." When he closed the poll, he called the winning brands "the most effective weapons to show off one's wealth." Again, that's the idea. The winners of the poll were Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Rolex. His grand enemy Hermès came in 7th. Some people have begun speculating where Rui buys his luxury goods and why he's suddenly decided that this is bad. Others have speculated that this is all self-promotion from the man who's been called the Chinese Lou Dobbs (as if one wasn't enough!). more ›

This is scary stuff. Yesterday, a female CCTV reporter was attacked by an unknown man who supposedly chopped her nose off. Yuck! It was reported by microblogger @dad胡嘉海 (“dad Hu Jiahai”) that when the victim left the tv station's building, she was approached by a man asking her whether she works there. When she affirmed, he attacked her several times with a knife he had hidden in a newspaper and then fled the scene. more ›

Remember during the CCTV Spring Festival Gala how one magician seemed to be able to control goldfish, moving them about a tank in single-file like they were his little fishy army? That guy - Fu Yandong 傅琰东- is now under fire from environmental and animal rights groups, who accuse him of animal cruelty. more ›

Tencent aired this commercial during the CCTV Gala last week, the most expensive air time on Chinese television. It resonated with the thousands of Chinese working and studying abroad, and probably with anybody else who's ever felt that thousands of miles can sometimes bring you closer to the ones you love. more ›

Ministry of Tofu called our attention a few days ago to recent gaffe by the official Chinese media. On January 23, CCTV aired a special about military air force training, showing one clip supposedly of a J-20 stealth jet blowing up another aircraft with a missile. An astute netizen immediately pointed out similarities between the CCTV footage and that of a scene from Top Gun. WSJ Real Time Report has now provided a juxtaposition of the two videos, showing even more clearly than the screen shots that this was obviously a faked clip. more ›

Our good friends at Fly Films have been working on their most recent reality show, Amazing Race: China Rush, the sequel of sorts to their last project: Shanghai Rush. The show is already on their second episode (it's first elimination episode) and can be viewed every Sunday night at 8pm on ICS or 11:15pm every Saturday night on CCTV News. more ›

It's been almost a year and a half since the TVCCbuilding next to Beijing's new CCTV headquarters went up in flames... and it's only now that they've started the reconstruction. more ›

A top official at Xinhua news agency has given a rare talk at Tianjin Foreign Students University detailing the cover-up techniques used by state media to manipulate news stories. more ›

Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei points us to this video now circulating widely on the Chinese interwebs. In the clip, a CCTV News anchor speaks with Tong Ye, the channel's New York correspondent who has just stepped out of a press conference on the recent Times Square car bomb. Here's the dialogue as translated by Danwei:

Anchor: The press conference has just ended, we're going live to our correspondent in New York, Tong Ye. more ›

For the first time ever, photos have been released of the inside of the wrecked TVCC tower, which caught on fire last year after an illegal yet CCTV-sponsored fireworks display. 21 people were just recently charged for their roles in the blaze, which allegedly had damages of 160 million yuan. more ›

A Beijing divorce court has started allowing evidence other than sperm tests for divorce cases relating to infidelity. As the aforementioned physical evidence is rarely conclusive, most divorce courts' judicial criteria involve assessing the "emotional connection" of the couple. Needless to say, raunchy text messages are definitely a step up. [China Daily] more ›

Obama's short time in our city might be cut a little shorter. The American President has been hoping to make a town hall styled forum with Chinese students a focal point of the trip. However, the government's desire to censor the event has caused problems: the event has been cut from 1,000-1,500 students to a mere 600, media may be banned (excluding CCTV, of course), and the event may not be broadcast live. The event seems close to cancellation: depriving the American President the chance to directly speak with the Chinese people, and making Beijing seem like it wants to keep him under wraps, would make a poor start to Obama's first trip to China. more ›

We've talked about some of the sillier commercials we've seen on Chinese television, but every now and then, one comes along that actually wows us. This one, by CCTV, is pretty stunning and hopefully will set the bar for tv ads to come. A dollop of ink is dropped into water and transforms into various Chinese painting staples, before moving on to some of the country's achievements and a shot of the Shanghai skyline in watercolor. Cool! more ›

When they changed over the system from Maoist Communism to "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" (as Hu Jintao put it during the last 60th anniversary parade), the CCP apparently decided not to tell anyone what the C in their name really meant. At least according to this video by Doing Business in China, which asks a bunch of Chinese people (some of whom are famous) to define "communism" - with dumbfounding results. more ›

Jackie Chan may be an adorable and well-liked kung fu superstar, but he sure doesn't seem to know when it's time to stop talking. We've recorded several of his gaffes before, including one made earlier this year when he insinuated that Chinese need to be controlled... but this latest interview really takes the cake. more ›

What do the NFL, small Chinese children, and a Taiwanese rock band have in common? Absolutely nothing, until the NFL decided to embark on its latest effort to make professional American football popular in China. more ›

One of the weirdest controversies we've been reading about has been whether or not the Beijing CCTV is “profane.” We're not sure when rumors that the headquarters of China's media mammoth was a “monument to pornography” surfaced, but it seems like it's now serious enough for Rem Koolhaas himself to categorically deny that he ever meant the building to look like genitalia. “I'm extremely sad that the best intentions, the best work of so many people, literally thousands of people, from the architects to the company to the workers, is compromised by this rumor, which as I said has no truth whatsoever,” he told CCTV. What are that chances that this will be enough to convince errant netizens that they shouldn't blow up the building since it shames the Chinese people? Source:Danwei more ›

We thought the dragon boat video was the funniest thing to come out of the otherwise tragic natural disaster known as Typhoon Morakot. We were wrong. This dedicated CCTV reporter decided, in true Al Roker fashion, that the best way to report on terrible weather is to stand right in the middle of it. more ›