ABSTRACT
The rationale for regulation of television has changed during the past two decades. If we take for instance the standard paradigm that Chinese communications industries are evolving from plan to market, we might conjecture that the Chinese television stations are state-owned enterprises aspiring to become fully-fledged autonomous commercial broadcasters. The open markets scenario that is the end point of the gradual liberalisation of China’s media markets has a certain end of ideology aura (Fukuyama 1992). However, despite the decentralisation and deregulation of China’s broadcasting sector over the past two decades, the optimism associated with the plan to market typology is flawed in several respects.
