Wait, China CCTV still exists?

The aging problem of TV audience is an issue widely acknowledged in the TV industry. The problem is especially severe for CCTV, China Central Television. That is not a trend that has newly appeared. In the 2006 version of Radio and Television Blue Book, the core audience of CCTV “includes the male, the mid-age people above 45, the groups whose monthly income is between 601 to 2600 yuan, and high-level officials”, while its minor audience is “the youth, the female, and the low- and high-income groups”. As a TV station whose audience is in their later part of life, CCTV has an aging problem in its content, promotion and ad revenues too.

Video-sharing websites have drawn away a considerable amount of young people. Gone has the tradition that the whole family sit together around a TV to follow news reports or TV series. Many other satellite TVs in China have re-assessed themselves and found their own niche market. For instance, Hunan Satellite TV focuses on young people like the post-1990 generation, while Jiangsu Satellite TV focuses on the young people looking for the other half. CCTV, however, confined to its political tasks, has to cover the majority of the population. To win all the hearts and minds is never easy, and so far CCTV is not doing quite well in that.

One way of the satellite TVs to promote their shows is to cooperate with video-sharing websites. Video-sharing websites know better how to promote a show via social media, and such promotion is actually lower than the traditional means. CCTV has never cooperated with these websites, and usually promotes its shows on CNTV, an online video website of its own. CNTV owns the first license of video websites in China which is the passport to enter this industry.But its videos are just as boring as those of CCTV. Young people like to watch TV dramas about the Qing royal family or American TV series, and CNTV is just not the place to watch those stuff. CNTV has started partnership with LeTV and Xiaomi which want to get a share in the cake of household internet devices. But the credit seems to go to those partners instead of CNTV.

In China, the overall income of video-sharing websites in 2010 was mere 3.14 billion yuan. The number doubled to 6.27 billion yuan the next year, and in 2012 it increased by 3 billion to 9.25 billion yuan. This number might seem small compared with that of CCTV at 26.976 in the same year. Yet it is worthwhile to note that the rate of CCTV’s ad revenues was less than 15%. According to the figures of Baidu, its ad revenues in 2012 was 22.246 billion yuan, increasing at a rate of 53.5% on a year-on-year basis. In terms of the rate, CCTV, as a superpower in traditional media, may have to pass its throne of advertising to Baidu by the end of 2013.

The explanation for its fall-off is obvious. Firstly, CCTV has an audience of which the average age is higher than that of other satellite TVs. It is harder to move its audience to buy as they are less impulsive than young people. Secondly, websites are able to display advertisements wisely and accurately through techniques like big data. In contrast, traditional TV advertisements seem compulsory and may be offensive to some viewers. Thirdly, in recent years, advertisers have gradually altered their attitudes towards online advertising. They are now more open to invest in online advertising, especially in mobile devices. For example, Sohu TV, which has got the license of “The Voice of China” by over 10 million yuan, has announced that it has got over 10 million yuan of advertising for this show, in which the advertising on mobile devices is over 10 million.