The Transistor Factory in Beijing during the 1970s. Many Chinese people would have heard China National Radio (formerly Yan’an Xinhua Broadcasting Station) through small transistor radios. PHOTO BY JOAN LEBOLD COHEN.
China National Radio (CNR) is the official radio system of the People’s Republic of China, with correspondent branches in forty cities. CNR is the farthest-reaching radio network in the country and one of the most important media organizations. Its nine channels of programming are under the editorial control of the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee.
Established in 1940, China National Radio (CNR/????????) is the official radio system of the People’s Republic of China, broadcasting 270 programs in nine channels, with 198 hours of daily broadcasting through satellites as of 2007. In 2002, CNR launched its website “CNR.CN” (www.cnr.cn), on which a nationwide broadcasting network of central and local radio stations was established to capture domestic and international audiences by providing news, entertainment, and other information-based programs.
CNR is the farthest-reaching radio network in the country and one of the most important media organizations. Administratively CNR is controlled by the National Bureau for Radio, Film, and Television within the State Council of China. Editorially it is controlled by the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee.
CNR grew out of Yan’an Xinhua Broadcasting Station, which was established by the Chinese Communist Party as China’s first “Red” national radio in 1940 in the city of Yan’an, then the base of the Chinese Communist Party. In 1949 Yan’an Xinhua Broadcasting Station (renamed “Shanbei Xinhua Broadcasting Station” after it moved from Yan’an) began broadcasting in Beijing under the name of “Peiping [Beijing’s former name] Xinhua Broadcasting Station.” On 5 December 1949 it was officially named “Central People’s Broadcasting Station.” Since January 2002 the station has been called “China National Radio,” with its acronym forming the basis for a website aimed at broadening its readership.
By 2007 CNR was broadcasting 270 programs in nine channels, with 198 hours of daily broadcasting through satellites. Channel 1 mainly transmits news in Mandarin to a national audience. Channel 2, Business Radio, airs economic, scientific, and technological information and service programs in Mandarin throughout China. Channel 3, Music Radio, is an FM stereo music channel. Channel 4, Metro Radio, provides live programs exclusively to listeners in Beijing. Channel 5 and Channel 6, Cross-Taiwan-Strait Radio, aims it programming to listeners in Taiwan, while Channel 7, Huaxia Radio, broadcasts programs for listeners in Hong Kong, Macau, and the region of the Pearl River delta. Channel 8, Ethnic Minorities Radio, airs programs in Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur, Kazakh, and Korean, and as well as in Mandarin. Channel 9, Story Radio, specializes in entertainment, including comic crosstalk and storytelling programs. After a recent reform CNR has increasingly stratified its programming to capture more specific target audiences.
CNR has forty correspondent branches in major Chinese cities, including Hong Kong and Macao, and has established cooperative relationships with major broadcasting organizations in forty foreign countries and regions. The new headquarters of CNR in Beijing, which opened in 1998, was a milestone in the organization’s transition to digitalization. The building houses world-class recording equipment, studios, and an eight-hundred-seat concert hall.
In the effort to become an integrated media organization, CNR has diversified its broadcasting-related services. It runs a publishing house, China Broadcasting Audio and Video Press, which produces several publications, including China Broadcast Weekly, China Broadcast Magazine (monthly), International Music Exchange (monthly), and Radio Songs. In addition, it has established its own TV-program production center. In 1998 CNR launched its official website, the first of its kind among the media organizations under the central government. On 1 January 2002 the website was officially named “CNR.CN” (www.cnr.cn), on which a nationwide broadcasting network of central and local radio stations was established to target domestic and international audiences by providing news, entertainment, and other information-based programs.
Further Reading
China journalism yearbook: 2006. (2006). Beijing: China Journalism Yearbook Publishing House.
China journalism yearbook: 2007. (2007). Beijing: China Journalism Yearbook Publishing House.
CNR.CN. (2008). Retrieved May 18, 2008, from http://www.cnr.cn
50 years of new China’s media. (2000). Beijing: China Journalism Yearbook Publishing House.
Source: Yu, Xuejian. (2009). China National Radio. In Linsun Cheng, et al. (Eds.), Berkshire Encyclopedia of China, pp. 342–343. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing.
China National Radio (Zh?ngy?ng Rénmín Gu?ngb? Diàntái ????????)|Zh?ngy?ng Rénmín Gu?ngb? Diàntái ???????? (China National Radio)
