Government Subsidies,Market Socialism,and the “Public” Character of Chinese Television

In March 2011 Chongqing Satellite TV was made a public-interest channel and discontinued advertising, losing 0.3 billion yuan in revenue. The shortfall is to be partially made up by annual government subsidies of 0.15 billion yuan. The transformation of Chongqing Satellite TV is very much related to the widely debated reform of governance in Chongqing (the so-called Chongqing model), and thus is inevitably controversial. It has attracted critical commentary from academia, the advertising industry, and netizens, while the TV station and the Chongqing municipal government have not mounted an effective defense. Often, the two sides in the debate have been at cross-purposes and have spoken past each other. This article attempts to move beyond rigid binary oppositions, such as official/civilian and academic/ political, and to look at the arguments of both sides in the debate with an eye toward promoting a clearer understanding of public media in China.