CGTN: British regulators withdraw license of Chinese state broadcaster

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Regulator Ofcom said on Thursday that it had withdrawn the channel’s license after an investigation “concluded that the license is unfairly held by Star China Media Limited”.

Ofcom said that Star China Media Limited had no “editorial responsibility” for the production of the channel and therefore “does not meet the legal requirement to have control over the licensed service.” Star acted as a distributor, rather than as a news channel provider, he added.

Regulators also rejected a CGTN proposal to transfer the license to a new entity after finding that it would eventually be controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and therefore disqualified under the law. British.

“We have offered CGTN many opportunities to comply, but it has not done so. We now consider it appropriate to withdraw the license for CGTN to broadcast in the UK,” an Ofcom spokesman said.

Ofcom previously ruled that the CGTN had repeatedly violated impartiality standards, covering protests in Hong Kong last year.
CGTN was launched in 2016. It says it provides “accurate and timely news coverage to the global public, as well as rich audiovisual services, promoting communication and understanding between China and the world and improving cultural exchanges and mutual trust between China and other countries. ”.

Headquartered in Beijing, CGTN has three production centers in Nairobi, Kenya, Washington DC and London.

– This is an evolving story and will be updated.

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