Rumor: SARFT Issues Rules for Online Radio and TV Stations
Lmtw.com, 5/26/10
Industry sources have reported that China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) recently sent a "Notice on Issues Surrounding Online TV and Radio Stations" to local broadcasting authorities around the country, stipulating clearly that applicants for online television or radio services must be local broadcasting organizations.
The "Notice" reportedly laid out further requirements regarding the financial and technical background of prospective applicant stations:
1. Any stations seeking to upgrade or expand into online television or radio broadcasting must have held an Online Audio-Visual Broadcasting License for a certain number of years, and must possess "relatively large scale and influence" in their home area.
2. Stations must possess necessary capital. New investments in online television should reportedly be in the range of RMB 10 mln.
3. Online television stations should offer a rich range of programming content covering topics including political news, arts, entertainment, technology, finance, sports, and education.
4. Applicants must have quality control systems capable of ensuring audiovisual program transmission for on-demand programming and trans-regional broadcasts for a large scale of viewers. Broadcast systems should be capable of supporting on-demand broadcast streams to 100,000 or more users, meaning that outgoing bandwidth must be 30 Gbps at a minimum.
Television and radio broadcasting organizations wishing to apply for online TV and radio broadcasting licenses must provide, along with their application, their Online Audio-Visual Broadcasting License, programming content arrangements, technical plans, operations and management plans, as well as documents revealing their sources of funding and bandwidth lease agreements, among other documentation, along with a letter of recommendation from their local Propaganda Department.
Keywords: online video online music Internet television Online Audio-Visual Broadcasting License SARFT regulation
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