China Radio International

"Radio Beijing" redirects here. For the municipal radio station (Radio Beijing Corporation), see Beijing Renmin Guangbo Diantai.

China Radio International

Shijingshan Road 16th Beijing
Broadcast area	Worldwide
Programming
Affiliations	State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television
Ownership
Owner	People's Republic of China
History
First air date	December 3, 1941
Links
Website	CRI, CRI in English

China Radio International
Simplified Chinese	中国国际 广播电台
Traditional Chinese	中國國際 廣播電台
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhōngguó Guójì Guǎngbō Diàntái Wade–Giles Chungkuo Kuochi Kuangpo Tient'ai IPA [ʈʂʊ́ŋkwǒ kwǒtɕî kwàŋpwó tjɛ̂ntʰǎɪ]

China Radio International (CRI), (Chinese: 中国国际广播电台; pinyin: Zhōngguó Guójì Guǎngbō Diàntái; formerly Radio Beijing and originally Radio Peking), founded on December 3 of 1941, is the People's Republic of China (PRC) state-owned international radio broadcaster, currently headquartered in Babaoshan, a subdistrict of Beijing.

CRI adopts the PRC Government's stance on political issues, such as its controversial position on the Political status of Taiwan, the Dalai Lama, etc. CRI endeavours to promote favourable relations between the PRC and the world. As with other nations' external broadcasters such as Voice of America, BBC World Service and Radio Australia, CRI plays a significant role in the PRC's soft power strategy.

It has 30 overseas bureaus, and broadcasts 1,520 hours of programming each day (24 hours in English), including news, current affairs, and features on politics, the economy, culture, science and technology.

CRI has the most comprehensive foreign service in Asia. More than 50 shortwave transmitters are used to cover most of the world; it is broadcast via the internet and numerous satellites; and its programs are rebroadcast by many local FM and AM radio stations worldwide.

History

Radio was first introduced in China in the 1920s and 1930s. However, few households had radio receivers. A few cities had commercial stations. Most usage of radio was for political purpose, frequently on a local area level.

The Chinese Communist Party first used radio in Yanan in March 1940 with a transmitter imported from Moscow. Xinhua New Chinese Radio (XNCR) went on the air from Yanan on December 30, 1940. XNCR transmitted to a larger geographical area after 1945, and its programs became more regular and formalised with broadcasts of news, official announcements, war bulletins, and art and literary programs.

The English service started on September 11, 1947, transmitting as XNCR from a cave in Shahe in the Taihang Mountains, when China was in the midst of a civil war, to announce newly conquered areas and broadcast a Chinese political and cultural perspective to the world at large. The station moved from the Taihang Mountains to the capital, Peking, when The People's Republic of China was formed in 1949. Its name was changed to Radio Peking on April 10, 1950 and to Radio Beijing in 1983. On January 1, 1993 the name of the station was again changed, this time to China Radio International, in order to avoid any confusion with local Beijing radio broadcasting.

Short wave/international broadcasting

CRI broadcasts via shortwave radio, satellite and the Internet in English and numerous other languages (see below). There are also numerous AM and FM relays.

Shortwave broadcasts in English are targeted at North America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia and the South Pacific. CRI maintains direct shortwave broadcasts to developed, media-rich countries in North America and Europe, even as major Western broadcasters (such as BBC World Service, Voice of America and Radio Netherlands) reduce or discontinue such broadcasts.

Programming

Mandarin Channel

At the beginning of 1984, it started to broadcast home service to the Beijing area on AM and FM frequencies. The service later expanded to dozens of major cities across the PRC, providing listeners inside the PRC with timely news and reports, music, weather, English and Chinese learning skills, as well as other services.

CRI News Radio (90.5 FM)

CRI News Radio (CRI环球资讯广播) was established on 28 September 2005, which takes advantage of CRI's journalists from all around the world and report international (and partially domestic) news, sport, entertainment and lifestyle programmes for domestic listeners in Mandarin Chinese. Its aim is to make CRI News Radio a first-class national news radio brand and its slogans are 'First News, News First', 'On-the-Spot China, Live World' etc. CRI News Radio can be heard online and in Beijing on the radio on 90.5 FM; in Tianjin 90.6 FM; in Chongqing 91.7 FM; in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau 107.1 FM; in Shandong 89.8 FM; in Anhui 90.1 FM.

Chinese podcasts

The following programmes can be heard on the Mandarin version of the podcast from the World Radio Network:

• News (Chinese: 新闻节目 Pinyin: xīn wén jié mù), which comes from the Xinhua News Agency.
• Tángrénjiē (Chinese: 唐人街 English translation: "Chinatown"), a programme about overseas Chinese (outside China)
• Weather forecasts around China
• Sports

This broadcast was originally targeted at London in the United Kingdom. In 2006, they removed the "London" reference, which was part of the introduction as "Ni hao London. Hello London"

English Channel

CRI in English (88.0 FM, 88.7 FM, 91.5 FM, 846 AM, 1008 AM)

The CRI English channels that can be heard online are:

• Pete and Leon in the Morning is an English radio airing in Canberra 6-8 AM weekdays.
• Round the Clock (Internet only)
• News Centre (846 AM in Beijing)
• Hit FM (88.7 FM in Beijing (24H All Day), 88.5 FM in Guangzhou (06:00—21:00 Beijing Time))
• Easy FM (91.5 FM in Beijing (24H All Day), 87.9 FM in Shanghai (Shanghai Edition) (24H All Day), 98.5 FM in Lanzhou)
• Language Studio (1008 AM in Beijing) - a one hour programme that teaches English for someone who only knows Mandarin (not to be confused with Chinese Studio). The programme sounds like a kindergarten English lesson in the USA using very simple sentences (e.g. Mary goes to the bank).
• CRI 91.9 FM (Kenya 91.9 FM)
• Chinese Studio is a 5 minute segment that follows most CRI English programmes
• China Drive is an English radio show about life in the PRC
• CRI FM 102 in Sri Lanka in Sinhala, Tamil, English and Chinese (05:30—19:30 Sri Lanka Time)
• The Hot Pot Show with DJ Duggy Day (featuring pop music from the PRC and around the world, Chinese pop star interviews, popular website reviews, travel features on the PRC, The China Top 5 chart countdown and much much more.) The Hot Pot Show can be heard in the PRC, Australia, The US, Kenya, Nepal, Liberia, Laos and the pacific islands of Vanuatu.

CRIENGLISH.com offers a wide range of video content on its video channel, including several flagship shows covering music, movies and comedy; and a handful of colourful documentary style shorts focussing on culture and travel within China.

English Podcasts

The English podcast from the World Radio Network includes the following programmes, all of which are also played on Easy FM, CRI 91.9 FM in Kenya, and in radio stations throughout the world.

• Hourly News
• The Beijing Hour ( replace weekday 'News & Reports' since early 2010)
• News & Reports
• People in the Know
• Press Clippings
• China Now
• Today
• China Drive
• Realtime China
• Africa Express
• Chinese Studio (sponsored by the Bridge School)

Holiday Broadcasts

During major Chinese holidays (dubbed Golden Week), such as Chinese New Year, May Day, and Mid-Autumn Festival, China Radio International typically broadcasts special programmes such as:

• Growing Up In China (during the May Day holiday)

Most of these programmes are not typical of the broadcast during the other parts of the year. The analogy is similar to Christmas music broadcasts in the United States.

Languages

China Radio International broadcasts in the following languages:

Albanian Arabic Belarusian Bengali Bulgarian Burmese Croatian Cambodian Mandarin Chinese Czech Danish Dutch English Esperanto

Estonian Filipino Finnish French German Greek Hausa Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Italian Japanese

Kazakh Korean Laotian Lithuanian Malay Mongolian Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Pashto Romanian Russian

Serbian Sinhalese Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Thai Tibetan (Lhasa and Kangba) Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uygur (China and Central Asia) Vietnamese

The Tibetan, Uygur and Kazakh services are broadcasting in association with the local radio stations (Tibet People's Broadcasting Station and Xinjiang People's Broadcasting Station).

(Source: http://www.chinabroadcast.cn )‏

Olympic Radio

In July 2006, CRI launched a new radio station called CRI Olympic Radio at 900 AM in Beijing. This special broadcast is done in Mandarin, Korean, English, Russian, French, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and German 24 hours a day. This service terminated in late 2008 and now the frequency 900 AM is occupied by CRI News Radio (Beijing only).

Bibliography

• Bishop, Robert L., "Qi Lai! Mobilizing One Billion Chinese: The Chinese Communication System", Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8138-0296-2
• Chang, Won Ho, "Mass Media in China: The History and the Future", Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1989.
• Hamm, Charles, "Music and Radio in the PRC," Asian Music, Spring/Summer 1991, vXXII, n2, p. 28-29.
• Howkins, John, "Mass Communication in China", New York: Annenberg/ Longman Communication Books, 1982.

External links

• CRI English
• WCETV Free Online Stream
• List of short-wave frequencies and sites currently on-air
• Hawaii KHCM AM880
• Beyond Beijing
• http://english.cri.cn/cribb/programs/duggy.htm
• [1] (CRI News Radio - in Chinese)
• Commentary about CRI in the US
• SWDXER ¨The SWDXER¨ - with general SWL information and radio antenna tips.
• Mr Science segment from China Drive
• The History of Culture and Mass Media in China
• Radio86, Chinese news and culture in 10 European languages