Text of report in English by Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS
Beijing, September 3: September 10, China’s Central Television launches a Russian-language channel, the TV’s Vice-President Zhang Changming told reporters Thursday.
He indicated that the main objective the international channel in Russian will be to consolidate mutual understanding, cooperation and exchanges between the People’s Republic of China and the former Soviet republics making up the Commonwealth of Independent States. Following the establishment of strategic partnership relations between China and Russia, the tendency towards a full-format, steady and healthy development of this relationship has taken hold, Zhang said.
The Russian channel will lift off on the background of gala events dedicated to the Year of the Russian language in China and the 60th anniversary since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic and the former USSR.
Russian will be the sixth international language, in which TV programmes will be broadcast from Beijing. At this moment, the Central Television has international channels in Chinese, English, French, Spanish, and Arabic. Future plans indicate the opening of a channel in Portuguese.
News and information programmes occupy the greater share of broadcasting from Beijing. The format also envisions the entertaining and educational formats filling the audiences in on the China of nowadays, as well as its history and culture. On the whole, the Russian-speaking audiences will be offered fourteen shows, including five information and nine documentary ones.
The signal will be transmitted via the satellites Chinasat 6B, EB and 9A. It is expected transmissions will cover Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe. Central Television’s officials believe the audiences will come to about 300 million people, mostly residents of the CIS and former Baltic Republics of the USSR.
(Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 0409 gmt 3 Sep 09 via BBC Monitoring)
on Sep 3rd, 2009 at 16:43
I believe it’s the third or fourth announcement about China’s starting Russian TV broadcasting. The news has been appearing for almost five years now. Two or three front TV companies were used in the past. I hope they’ll stick with CCTV this time.
on Sep 3rd, 2009 at 21:25
CCTV-R appeared on Eurobird 9A at 9E a couple of days ago with an info card. Frequency was 11997V 27500 3/4. However its not being transmitted at the moment - I get a “no channel” message.
on Sep 3rd, 2009 at 22:08
Its back again - must have been a glitch. CCTV-E (Spanish) has also launched on the same frequency on EB9A today