According to a report in today’s South China Morning Post, Chinese auditors have begun a seven-month investigation into the finances of state-owned China Central Television (CCTV). The station is under fire for irregularities in its accounting systems, employment structure and management. According to officials, audits of state-owned media such as CCTV are not routine, and are only carried out when the situation demands it.
on Dec 22nd, 2004 at 04:56
I know a person who works at CCTV 9, and he says it’s very similar to China Radio International in how it works. Well, at CRI, allegedly, the government pays 21,000 yuan a month to the station for every foreign employee: The foreigners themselves then get paid 11-12,000 yuan, and the remainder is spread out at the Foreign Experts Office - and it is impressive how the son of on of the staff there has done his Masters and PhD in the US, I suppose he’s on scholarship.
My (junior, single) Chinese colleagues told me they reckoned something similar happened with their salaries too. Promotion also depended on membership of the Communist Party, and bonuses were decided by a committee of retired CRI people picking a random day’s programmes and assessing them for political “correctness”. That’s another matter thoughÂ…
I would imagine the situation is very similar at CCTV, or probably more extreme, given the size of the organisation, it’s high profile, and the social identity associated with TV people in Beijing.