China's CGTN No Longer Has Permission To Broadcast in Germany (dw.com) 22
The Chinese cable channel CGTN may no longer broadcast in Germany, a press spokesperson for the state media authority of Northrhine-Westphalia confirmed to DW on Friday. From a report: The news came after the UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom revoked the channel's license on February 4. According to an agreement among several European countries, CGTN's license in Germany had been approved by Ofcom as part of a license sharing initiative. With the Ofcom license revoked, CGTN has been left without permission to broadcast in Germany. Vodafone Germany also reported on Friday that it had "paused" distribution of the channel over its cable network in Nordrhine-Westphalia, Hesse und Baden-Wurttemberg, according to Reuters. "We are currently in discussions regarding the withdrawal of the license both with regional media authorities and the broadcaster's representatives in order to clarify the legal situation," the company said.
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On a more serious note, how can you have a non-Eu country control the regulatory regime in a Eu country is in the realm of WTF? This should have been scheduled for migration under the German (or other Eu country) regulator in 2018 the same way the EMA and other stuff was migrated. Why nobody bothered to do that beggars belief.
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I don't think anyone in the EU knows exactly what chain of regulators needs to be invoked at any particular time. If you invoke too many, you get contradicting results.
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I'm guessing that
- A broadcasting licence in on EU country gives you a broadcasting licence in all EU countries
- Part of the Brexit deal was that existing EU licences would continue to be valid in the UK and existing UK licences would continue to be valid in the EU for a period of time.
Ha! Just wait for the Chinese response. (Score:5, Insightful)
China has perfected the art of commit acts of sheer hypocrisy and then acting absolutely shocked and appalled when their own schemes used against them.
I'm sure they'll call this "an irresponsible and shameful political act to hurt China" or some bullshit.
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They like that word, a lot.
Re:Ha! Just wait for the Chinese response. (Score:4, Informative)
route, only on a country-sized scale.
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You don't have to wait. Per TFA they've already blocked BBC.
China as a government always seems to negotiate in bad faith. I guess that's the story here.
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Given that the BBC has never been generally allowed to broadcast in mainland China in the first place, it was unclear what impact, if any, China's 11 February ban would have.
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Zero impact. Even western channels that ARE permitted to be broadcast are subject to censorship at any time. The only way to really get real international news in China is to do it over the internet with VPN and even that is getting harder and harder.
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I mean, they've already banned the BBC in China in response to Ofcom banning CGTN in the UK (and now, it appears, in other parts of Europe too).
The problem with the Chinese is that they are so rabidly nationalistic and indoctrinated that they literally can't comprehend that other countries have different codes of morals and laws that need to be abided by, so the only reason they can comprehend for action being taken against them is that they're being attacked for no valid reason. And the only way they know
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China is communist, which is far left, so it makes sense these groups are natural enemies.
Re: Ha! Just wait for the Chinese response. (Score:2)
No they're not. On the whole, Chinese people are well aware that "free speech" in the west is mostly BS, and counter productive, almost by any measure.
Yeah, but that probably is very inconsequencial (Score:2)
I mean why would they even need a license here. They are not going to broadcast over DVB-T(2) anyhow, and cable television is a joke in Germany (e.g. no BBC, but a channel you can watch the Cosby Show in cut to 16:9 so you won't see his chin or forehead).
A huge chunk of people in Germany just watch FTA satellite, and it's on 3 popular satellite positions operated by 2 distinct companies.
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Then still there's Eutelsat, and lots of different other companies.
So far the only company that dropped them was cable operator (semi-) monopoly Vodafone and even they claim that they are just checking if a license is a requirement for them to put a channel onto their cable system. There is some precedence, BTW, there was a tiny local station in the German town of Hof that lost its license, then sued, and while they didn't actually get back their license, they were allowed by the judge to go on broadcasting
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cable television is a joke in Germany (e.g. no BBC, but a channel you can watch the Cosby Show in cut to 16:9 so you won't see his chin or forehead).
Eh? Here in scenic Heidelberg I get the BBC. Unitymedia Cable. I've never seen the Cosby Show. What channel is that on? The closest I probably get is the Comedy Channel.
Oh, and when I change to CGTN it displays the standard, "Due to technical difficulties . . ." message.
It should read, "Due to political difficulties . . ."
Nobody here has ever heard of CGTN. (Score:1)
This may sound like a big thing,
but if you go around in this Germand media city that has two big TV stations running from here, you will be hard-pressed if you meet even a single person who ever heard of them, let alone watched anything b, CGTN, before the *week* is over.
And who still watches regular TV anyway? Everyone has got Internet... why would they need to broadcast at all?
Will we ban portable wax cylinders for horse carriages from China next? ^^
(Oh well, no matter how pathetic China's attempt there w
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You can watch CGTN on Youtube. They're still there.
It's useless unless you want to see news about China and it's highly sanitized. But I've seen worse.
Imo (some of) CGTN is fair and balanced (Score:2)
There are some shows on CGTN which seem to me to be pretty fair and balanced. There was a show the other day with some American guest who was allowed to spout off about the usual "free this" or "democratic" that, and was clearly anti-China, or at least anti-CPC. Frankly, he didn't come off looking too sane, but they allowed him to speak, as I recall...and it was live.
Iinm, it was also on WeChat, but I've not confirmed.
They even sent that same reporter/anchor to the USA to debate with some anchor in the USA.