The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT; Chinese: 国家广播电影电视总局; pinyin: Guójiā Guǎngbō Diànyǐng Diànshì Zǒngjú) is an executive branch under the State Council of the People's Republic of China. Its main task is the administration and supervision of state-owned enterprises engaged in the television, radio, and film industries.
It directly controls state-owned enterprises at the national level such as China Central Television, China National Radio, China Radio International, as well as other movie and television studios and others non-business organizations.
It is also responsible for censoring any materials that offend the sensibilities of the Chinese government or Chinese cultural standards. An example of such activity is the summer 2007 controversy over the television talent show First Heartthrob.
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In 1986 the State Council Ministry of Culture, Film Council and the Department of Radio and Television merged to form the Film and Television Bureau. On 25 June 1998 Film and Television Bureau reorganized as the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
According to the official functions of SARFT are:
The SARFT plays a similar role in China as TDF Group plays in France and Germany, or Crown Castle plays in the US or Australia. The SARFT owns and operates, as well as manages many thousands of MW, FM, TV and Shortwave relay transmitters in China (as well as those leased abroad for external broadcasting).
Recently, the SARFT has decided to switch over to using ALLISS technology for international broadcasting in SE and NE Asia.
SARFT's ALLISS deployment
The ALLISS system is a fully rotatable antenna system for high power shortwave radio broadcasting in the 6 MHz to 26 MHz range. An ALLISS module is a self contained shortwave relay station that is used for international broadcasting.
ALLISS is a special design case of HRS type antennas. True ALLISS systems have solid radiators (horizontal radiating elements) versus tensioned flexible (open) radiators found with all other variations of ITU HRS type antennas systems. The names is based on a concatenation of two French villages ALLouis and ISSoudun.
China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) is a mobile television and multimedia standard developed and specified in China by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT).[1] It is based on the Satellite and Terrestrial Interactive Multiservice Infrastructure (STiMi), developed by TiMiTech, a company formed by the Chinese Academy of Broadcasting Science.[2][3] Announced in October 2006,[1] it has been described as being similar to Europe's DVB-SH standard for digital video broadcast from both satellites and terrestrial 'gap fillers' to handheld devices.[3]
It specifies usage of the 2.6 GHz frequency band and occupies 25 MHz bandwidth within which it provides 25 video and 30 radio channels with some additional data channels.[3] Multiple companies have chips that support CMMB standard - Innofidei who was the first with a solution March 28, 2007, Siano Mobile Silicon(with the SMS118x chip family, which support diversity and have superb performance) and more .[4][5]
The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television issued a directive on 30 March 2009 to highlight 31 categories of content prohibited online, including violence, pornography, content which may "incite ethnic discrimination or undermine social stability". Many netizens believe the instruction follows the official embarrassment over the rise of the "Grass Mud Horse" phenomenon.
Some industry observers believe that the move was designed to stop the spread of parodies or other comments on politically sensitive issues in the runup to the anniversary of the 4 June Tiananmen Square protests, while others see the move as a 'power' move driven by its long-standing intention to extend its scope to cover the increasingly influential Internet.[6]
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