Poverty Alleviation of State Administration of Radio, Film and Television

　　【Overview】 In 2010, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) seriously implemented the deployment and requirements of the state on poverty alleviation and development. Based on the actual situation of radio and television program service, taking it as an important part of the anti-poverty work to boost the development of radio, film and TV industry in impoverished areas, through implementation of the project of "extending radio and TV coverage to every village" and rural movie show project, it strived to extend the coverage of radio and TV program services and actively boosted the cultural development in impoverished areas to promote the national poverty alleviation and development and achieved remarkable results.

　　【Implementation of industrial poverty alleviation policy】 1. Adjust the policy supporting local radio stations to retransmit the central programs. Since 2006, the central government has issued subsidies for the renovation of large and medium-power television transmitters and ancillary equipment of the radio and TV stations of county and above level to retransmit the first set of broadcast program of the Central People's Broadcasting Station and the programs of CCTV-1 and CCTV-7, and included the operation and maintenance expenses of the renovated equipment into central budget. Meanwhile, various regions increased investment in retransmitting local programs. The province, city and county governments are responsible for the renovation and maintenance of the equipment for retransmitting local programs.

2. Implement the preferential policy for electricity use of radio and TV stations. All the wireless transmitting stations, relay stations, poor turntable stations and monitoring stations implemented the unified electrovalence standards for special industries. This policy alone can reduce nearly 100 million Yuan of electric charge for rural radio stations in China.

3. Increase subsidies for rural movie show. In 2010, in order to further strengthen its support, based on the actual cost estimates for rural movie show in various regions, the Ministry of Finance raised the subsidy for each public welfare movie from 100 Yuan to 200 Yuan and, in form of rewarding, issued rewards of 83.5 million Yuan for rural movie show in three cities of six eastern provinces.

4. Support the radio, film and TV program service in impoverished areas in accordance with the principle of "paying equal attention to project construction and maintenance". While boosting the radio, film and TV project construction in Xinjiang and Tibet and improving the broadcasting and TV infrastructure, coverage capacity and language translation capacity of minority areas, in accordance with the principle of  "paying equal attention to project construction and maintenance", the central government arranges annual operation and maintenance fee to ensure the normal operation of the facilities and equipment and arranged annual funds for the translation of minority radio, film and TV programs. In addition, it supported some border areas to “export” the radio, film and TV programs to boost the cultural exchange and cooperation with the neighboring counties.

　　【Field research for poverty alleviation】 Since the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development designated the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV to provide counterpart support for Shiqu, Seda, Yajiang, Litang and Xinlong County in Ganzi Prefecture of Sichuan in October 2006, Vice Minister of Central Publicity Department, Party Committee Secretary and Director-General of State Administration of Radio, Film and TV Wang Taihua, Vice Party Committee Secretary and Vice Director-General Zhao Shi, Party Committee Member and Vice Director-General Zhang Haitao, Party Committee Member and Discipline Inspection Team Leader of the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee of the CPC in the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV Wang Lili and other leaders successively headed delegations to conduct field research on fixed-point poverty reduction and broadcasting and TV work in Ganzi Prefecture to learn the situation of counterpart support in poverty reduction and the development situation of grassroots radio, film and TV stations. They listened to the reports of local party and government departments, radio and TV sectors and poverty relief departments, visited poor rural households and radio and TV station staffs, further analyzed and studied measures to promote the poverty alleviation and put forward requirements on the work.

　　【Project of "extending radio and TV coverage to every village"】 In the “11th Five-Year Plan” period, the project of "extending radio and TV coverage to every village" mainly had two tasks. First, wireless coverage project of rural broadcast and T programs: Before 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, we completed the construction of central broadcast and TV coverage project in rural areas, achieving the goal of central radio and TV coverage of impoverished areas in the “11th Five-Year Plan” period two and a half years ahead. In order to ensure the effective operation of relevant equipments, the central government issues special funds for equipment maintenance every year. In 2010, all the subsidies were issued. Meanwhile, the provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) actively promoted the development of local programs; Secondly, construction of electrified blind villages with over 20 households: Radio and TV live show satellites were used to cover these areas. At the end of 2010, 13.5 million rural households from the “blind villages” had access to over 40 sets of clear digital radio and TV programs, of which 5.62 million households were from national key counties for poverty alleviation and development. After that, all the natural villages with 20 or more households in key counties for poverty alleviation and development had access to radio and TV programs. Through encryption reception of direct broadcast satellite, good management is practiced and quality services are provided.

　　National key counties for poverty alleviation and development have been the key targets of the project of "extending radio and TV coverage to every village". For the construction of electrified blind villages and natural villages with over 50 households, the central government allocated 1.3 billion Yuan, of which 648 million Yuan was for key countries, accounting for 49% of the total. During the “11th Five-Year Plan” period, the central government issued 3.2 billion Yuan to support the construction of “blind villages” with over 20 rural households, of which 1.612 billion Yuan was issued to key counties, accounting for 50.4% of the total.

　　As of the end of 2010, the project of "extending radio and TV coverage to every village" had addressed the broadcast and TV program problem of more than 100 million people from the “blind villages”; the rate of coverage of central broadcast and TV programs was further expanded in rural areas and the coverage of CCTV-1, CCTV-7 and the first set of broadcast program of the Central People's Broadcasting Station respectively reached 85%, 69% and 85%, involving 1.1 billion, 900 million and 1.1 billion people. Through the radio and TV programs, rural residents got to know the party and government policies, learn knowledge on getting rich and got richer cultural life. The project of "extending radio and TV coverage to every village" explored a path for the masses in impoverished areas to shake off poverty and become rich, widely welcomed by the masses, and is a “popular- sentiments project” and “benevolent project“ benefiting thousands of rural households.

　　【Rural movie show project】 During the “11th Five-Year Plan” period, the state allocated 600 million Yuan of special funds to purchase 919 mobile movie projectors and 17,669 sets of digital movie projection equipment for the rural areas in central and western regions (including some eastern impoverished). From 2007 to 2010, the central government arranged 1.62 billion Yuan of subsidies for the movie show in central and western rural areas. In 2010, in order to further strengthen its support, based on the actual cost estimates for rural movie show in various regions, the Ministry of Finance raised the subsidy for each public welfare movie from 100 Yuan to 200 Yuan and, in form of rewarding, issued rewards of 83.5 million Yuan for rural movie show in three cities of six eastern provinces.

　　In accordance with the new development ideas for film industry in rural areas and a series of documents issued by SARFT, in 2010, it was clarified that the premise for "government purchases" is that the movies are shown by rural corporate or joint-stock cinema companies. As of the end of 2010, 240 rural digital cinema companies were set up in China. Except 22 cinemas practicing institutional system in Xinjiang and Tibet, all the rest 218 companies were market entities with legal person identity. 148 digital film ground satellite stations were established and financial departments at all levels and the cinema companies purchased 42,467 sets of digital cinema projection equipment, averagely one for each town. 1,290 digital videos were issued, of which 693 were public films and 597 were commercial films. A nationwide digital film projection structure was formed in rural areas.

　　【Special anti-poverty funds】 According to the "Notice on the Issuance of ‘Measures on the Management of Anti-poverty Funds by Radio and TV Programs’ " issued by the Ministry of Finance and SARFT, in 2010, the central government allocated 70 million Yuan for poverty alleviation by radio and TV programs to support the renovation of the equipments of the backbone broadcasting and TV stations in old revolutionary base areas, minority and border areas, mountain areas and the regions severely affected by natural disasters, giving priority to disaster-hit areas such as Yushu of Qinghai, Zhouqu of Gansu and Jilin Province as well as the five designated poor areas receiving the counterpart support of SARFT, namely Shiqu, Seda, Yajiang, Litang and Xinlong of Ganzi Prefecture. The funds for poverty alleviation by radio and TV programs played a positive role in renovating the broadcasting and TV facilities after disaster, strengthening broadcasting and TV infrastructure and extending the coverage of radio and TV programs.

　　【Poverty alleviation by science and technology】 Carry out the project of "extending radio and TV coverage to every village" through innovative application of satellite radio and television broadcast services to improve the level of coverage and management of the project of "extending radio and TV coverage to every village". A new round of project of "extending radio and TV coverage to every village" achieved the standardized and sophisticated management of the users through establishing a national unified platform for direct broadcast satellite service and China’s special direct broadcast satellite transmission standards and encryption.

　　From June to August 2010, SARFT developed and implemented the technical program for covering Xinjiang’s programs in minority languages by direct satellite transmission. Based on extending the coverage of direct satellite transmission platform to cover the programs in two minority languages – Uygur and Kazakh language, SARFT increased four sets of TV programs and five sets of radio programs in Uygur and Kazakh language to meet the needs of minorities in Xinjiang, especially in pasturing areas, widely welcomed by the minority masses in Xinjiang.

　　【Care for shepherds, condolence in the Spring Festival and delivery of DBS TV sets】 In 2010, the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, SARFT and Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government jointly launched the activity of care for shepherds, condolence in the Spring Festival and delivery of DBS TV sets. The Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee and SARFT raised a total of 74 million Yuan, donated 20,000 digital TV sets equipped with solar cells and DBS receiving equipment suitable for herdsmen in the pasturing areas of Sichuan Province, which can receive 51 sets of TV programs, including the programs in minority languages such as Kham Tibetan, Amdo Tibetan, Tibetan dialects, Uygur, Kazakh, Mongolian and Korean.

　　This activity was one of the major initiatives to implement the requirements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on supporting the development of Tibetan areas in Sichuan and improving the production and living conditions of the masses in pasturing areas, which further improved the public cultural service system in Tibetan areas, changed the poor spiritual life of 20,000 pasturing families and was of great significance in helping the herdsmen to learn about the outside world, enriching their cultural life, improving the level of openness of pasturing areas and boosting the leapfrog development and long-term public security of Tibetan areas.

　　【Poverty alleviation by sending cadres】 In January 2010, SARFT sent the cadres of the Art Center of CCTV to act as Vice Secretary-General of the Prefectural Government to support the poverty alleviation in Ganzi Prefecture of Sichuan Province.

　　【Pro-poor measures】 1. Attach great importance and strengthen the organization and leadership. SARFT attaches great importance to poverty reduction. In accordance with the state’s deployment on poverty alleviation and development work, always taking it as the starting point and goal of the anti-poverty work to address the radio and TV program problem of rural residents, SARFT took active measures, allocated special funds for poverty reduction by radio and TV programs, continued to implement major public cultural projects such as “extending radio and TV coverage to every village” and rural movie projection project, increased investment in infrastructure construction for radio and TV industry in impoverished areas, expanded the coverage of radio and TV programs in rural poor areas, actively promoted the rural public cultural development in impoverished regions and gave full play to the important role of radio and TV programs in national poverty alleviation and development.

2. Increase investment and improve the support policy. During the "11th Five-Year Plan" period, the central government increased subsidies for “extending radio and TV coverage to every village” in the western and poor areas, allocated special funds for rural movie show and purchased mobile movie projectors and digital movie projectors for the central and western rural areas (including some eastern impoverished regions); adjusted the previous policy that allows local radio and TV stations to transmit the central programs for free, developed preferential policies for electricity use of radio and TV stations and actively implemented new broadcasting, film and TV projects in the western regions, border and minority areas. Through the implementation of a series of key radio and TV projects and supportive policies, it improved the radio and TV infrastructure in impoverished areas, improved the spiritual status of the masses in poor areas and boosted the economic and social development of impoverished areas.

3. Organize project construction based on local conditions. Under the principle of "advanced technology, on the safe side, economically feasibility and long-term effectiveness", based on the actual situation and through the technical means suited to local conditions, the project of “extending radio and TV coverage to every village” further expanded the coverage of radio and TV program in rural areas and enhanced the coverage effectiveness and household reaching rate of the radio and TV program in rural areas. In suburbs and rural areas with certain conditions, the project was constructed by networking wired cables. In remote blind villages with over 20 households, the project was implemented through radio and television broadcast satellite, etc. In accordance with the new development idea for rural film reform of "business operation, market-oriented, government purchase and mass-benefiting" put forward by the central committee of the CPC, rural movie projection program was actively implemented. It established the financial security system for government’s public welfare movie projection in rural areas, fostered a number of new rural movie market players and established the rural mobile digital movie projection technical service and film supply system.

4. Establish a long-term mechanism for long-term development. To protect the masses’ right to public radio and television culture, the project of “extending radio and TV coverage to every village” and the rural movie projection program are now changing from project construction to the establishment of basic public service system. In accordance with the principle of graded responsibility, the state clarified government’s dominant position in fostering market and providing public services, gave play to the role of market mechanism, encouraged and guided social forces to participate in radio, film and TV public services through government purchase, project subsidy, franchised operation and preferential policy, and explored the gradual establishment of a long-term mechanism for radio, film and TV public services for rural households with business or project as the link, county as the center and town as the basis.