May Day for Chinese HDTV

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Forget Torch Relay demonstrations. The Beijing Olympics are already here, especially for those wealthy Chinese who own HDTV sets.

China Central TV will launch its HDTV service on May 1, a national holiday in the country, and as part of the build-up to the Olympics. The channel, called CCTV-HD, will air sports, TV plays, features, documentaries, entertainment, music and financial programmes 24 hours a day. It aims to be a high-quality channel to promote Chinese culture, the spokesman said.

Ahead of the Games, the audience in China can enjoy the live broadcast of the UEFA European Football Championship on the HD channel in June. During the Games, the channel will broadcast as the "Olympic HD Channel" and offer live broadcasts of all events and the opening and closing ceremonies.

By 2015, China says it plans to cover the whole country with wired, wireless or satellite HDTV signals and end analog broadcasting, according to officials. About 90% of the population is to receive HD channels via wireless digital TV technology within a few years.

BBC Monitoring, reporting the local Xinhua news agency, says at present only eight cities, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, can receive HDTV programmes.


Source: Rapid TV News