Interview With Heping Jiang, President of CCTV Sports

International Journal of Sport Communication, 2013, 6, 143-152 2013 Human Kinetics, Inc. www.ijsc-journal.com INDUSTRY IntErVIEW Interview With Heping Jiang, President of CCTV Sports Wei Wei Chengdu Sport University, People s Republic of China In the circle of Chinese sports media, Heping Jiang is a name nearly everybody recognizes. CCTV Sports is currently the most influential sports-media complex in China, and he is the man in charge. In addition, Jiang is the president of CCTVSE, a company that produces and promotes most of the programs for CCTV Sports. After graduating from Shanghai International Studies University with a dual degree in English and international journalism, Jiang was assigned to CCTV as a copy editor for world news. In 1996 he became the deputy director of the news editorial department and won a scholarship to study for a master s degree in international journalism at Cardiff University. On his graduation in 1998, he was promoted to be director of the English News Department. One of the architects of CCTV s English channel, Jiang was appointed its deputy controller in 2000. In 2003, he was named deputy director of CCTV s overseas service and concurrently serves as controller of CCTV s English channel. Since May 31, 2005, Jiang has served as president of CCTV Sports Center, directing a sports channel that he had previously barely watched. Given his background, it was a big surprise for him to be handed the sports assignment. Despite his previous lack of familiarity, Jiang soon become intimately familiar with the world of sports, moving effortlessly from amateur fan to his current status as wellheeled sports veteran. After 8 years, nearly all the developments of CCTV Sports programs can trace themselves back to Jiang. With his guidance, CCTV Sports has produced Martial Art Fiesta, China Longzhou Tournament, and various other innovative shows, as well as numerous sports documentaries, winning countless international prizes along the way. Like the ESPY award, CCTV Sports Personality of the Year became the dominant sports award in China. The name of this award was changed by Jiang. Wei: Why do you think you and not someone else were assigned as president of CCTV Sports? How long did it take to adjust to your current position? Jiang: It did surprise me, far beyond my imagination. As you might imagine, the job came with immediate pressures. Huayong Zhao, then president of CCTV, talked to me. He said that I was being appointed because of the Beijing Olympiad. In short, the position required someone with abundant capabilities in international communication. The author is currently with the School of Communication, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. 143

144 Wei The author and Heping Jiang At the very beginning, I established three targets: short-term, medium-term, and long-term. My short-term goal was to accomplish the annual ratings and income targets. The medium-term goal was to successfully complete all the broadcasting tasks of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. For the long term, the plan was to get involved with sports commercialization and to fully realize the commercialization of sports television. It s this last goal we are currently on track to accomplish. So I think my educational background fits well with that project because sports programming nowadays is increasingly globalized. If you look at daily sports programming, can it be said to be purely domestic? In fact, no single day exists without international sports programs. According to the actual amounts, the international programs far outstrip the domestic ones. It is the essence of sports to exist globally and without borders. Hence, I came to realize that my familiarity with international discourse and expression made me the right man for the job. Between the time that I was appointed and September 5 a period of roughly 3 months the channel was transformed into a 24/7 professional sports channel, compared with 18 hours per day before. Our objectives then were to highlight the events, stress the news, alter the layouts, and enhance the ratings. We accomplished our objectives that year. From the perspective of the common audience, the sports channel met the mass requirements, especially those of the veteran sports audience. We produced a lot of Olympic programs, closely revolving around the Beijing Olympiad. These were widely welcomed. Although I was not a player and coach for any sports events, I m an active participant in sports. I play table tennis, I walk, and I occasionally play badminton. So I come from the perspective of the ordinary person who wants to get started with sports. Hence it was my goal to promote sport, build up people s physical strength.

Interview With Heping Jiang 145 Wei: From the time you took office until now there have been two complete periods of summer Olympic Games and soccer World Cup. What is you sense of how things stand with sports compared with the very beginning? Jiang: At the start, I was a bit muddle-headed with respect to sports. Although I played table tennis and was a participant in the national fitness program, I considered sports the concern of a small part of society. Some people prefer soccer, some basketball, others volleyball or table tennis, and so forth. As a result, I focused on some special events in China. Table tennis and badminton, for example, are popular games. Chinese women s volleyball represented the national spirit in the 1980s. So we focused on these special events. Now I look at sports from a greater, more macroscopic angle, as compared with the previous microscopic and local perspective. Hence, I try to look at the big picture, which is comprehensive and sophisticated. You have to understand the basic rules and regulations. It s not about playing well but knowing how to play, and who plays well. What is China s current position with regard to the sport and what will its future be? The positions for basketball, volleyball, and soccer are different than those of table tennis and badminton, while tennis is another story entirely. After 8 years, I am no longer focused on the local and microscopic. Limitations that existed before are gone. Right now I don t look only at the ratings; we consider the degree of sports participation in China, as well as the worldwide angle. Wei: You mentioned you want to establish TV sports programs with Chinese characteristics. Now we can witness some of these features from programs like Martial Arts Fiesta, China Longzhou (Dragon Boat) Tournament, and Sports Personality of the Year. From your point of view, do these programs have powerful messages and unique values? What do they represent? Jiang: For me, a sports channel does not only broadcast some sports, news coverage, and a couple of fixed programs. A sports channel is a broad platform. In this platform, you could go beyond news, events, and some regular programs. These activities can also be very good TV programs. So what we do at the moment is to turn activities into programs and programs into activities. On this basis, I proposed that we should produce a program for martial arts. Why a martial arts program? Although it was a performing event in the Beijing Olympic Games, there was not a single program to represent martial arts on CCTV before. This was unbelievable. How can it go into the Olympiad without there being a program on the national TV station? I made up my mind to produce a program to reflect traditional cultures and sports here in China and to begin with martial arts. I proposed to make Martial Arts Fiesta, as I named this program. But how to make a martial arts program popular? What most of Chinese viewers saw before were stylized performances with no substance. The masses wanted to witness the real competitive martial arts real free boxing, face to face. As a result we decided to make it real, trying to represent a true competitive match. The impact was immediate, and when we looked at the ratings, they exceeded our expectations. In addition, we studied who watched the program. While we had assumed most of the viewers would be those with lower levels of education, in fact those

146 Wei with higher education constituted the majority of the audience. Quite a surprise, wouldn t not say? What about China Longzhou Tournament? Why establish an event like that? What motivated us was that when longzhou became an official event of 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, Indonesia s delegation took home all three men s gold medals, while China won the three women s. What did that say? Longzhou is very much an international game, with not only a strong mass following in China but with definite international interest. Right after this I negotiated with Mr. Li Ting, deputy editor-in-chief of CCTV, to produce a program about longzhou. Of course it had to adjust to the customs of the dragon boat festival. We did our first program at Jiangyin, Jiangsu province. From that time, this tournament took off. What s the reason? First, it is because tradition has a pull on our imagination. Second, longzhou is essentially road racing. The rules are pretty straight-forward. You can easily tell who wins or loses, making it of interest to an international audience. Compare that with wushu, tae kwon do, and aikido, where there seems no objective standard and everything seems subjective. By contrast, the rules of longzhou are simple and direct. So it has potential, no question about it. Let s change topics to Sports Personality of the Year. When I took responsibilities in 2005, I had a talk with Mr. Sun Yusheng, vice president of CCTV. We used to have a sports television prize before, but it was not objective. The administrator in charge interfered too much, and the outcomes were not decided by votes. We decided to keep the prize but to make some big changes. The name of the prize was altered to Sports Personality of the Year. Later we kept on pushing the program forward, year by year, and now, is there another similar prize to equal to it? It has a very positive brand effect. Most of the mainstream press call it the Academy Award of Chinese Sports. Why? Because we keep the focus on its objective standard. We don t mess with the process; it must be authoritative. The transparency of this award is beyond doubt. Some may say, why give the prize to winter sports? For their performance! Every judge has his or her own standard. I am a judge. I could never be completely right. This year I got eight correct, that was amazing! Last year I got just five. It exactly illustrated the prize s objectivity. The more open the process, the more convincing the prize. We are aiming to make it even better in the future. Simultaneously, we insist on making programs into activities. For example, we shall produce a mass challenge tournament for table tennis this year. We are only looking for amateurs. Anyone who was trained by pros or even by semipros cannot participate in the tournament. In this, we are trying to reflect our Chinese fitness program. We want to treat sports as the pursuit of competitive events for the purposes of the health of the masses. This is a gradual development in sports. The National Sports Administration always stresses that the wheels of competitive sports and of mass health should be rolling at the same time, that the target of sports eventually is to build up people s physique. Sports does not mean gold medals only. I feel that the Chinese people recognize this. Changes have taken place in recent years. After the Beijing Olympics, most of the Chinese people were simply not that overwhelmed by all the gold medals. What can be considered valuable by the entire society? Pure competitive sports are not able to bear that. We have many sports, including professional, semipro, and amateur sports. The Olympic Games

Interview With Heping Jiang 147 are a venue for Chinese competitive sports. But we have many non-olympic events. We have over 100 events here in China, even including mahjong. How do those events compare? In the London Olympic Games, everyone had further skepticism about the value of gold medals; they are not the only or even the most important thing. The Chinese badminton team swept the gold medal at the Games. Why were they not awarded our prize? It s a question worth consideration. Sportsmanship and sports ethics take precedence over gold medals. Those are equally important to the appreciation of sports. Wei: I notice that you have another position on your card, president of CCTVSE. What s the relationship with CCTV Sports? Jiang: CCTVSE has been established for a long time. It was originally called CCTV sports-promotion company. That was in the 1990s. We increasingly realized that not every program could be adequately dealt with by the TV station s budget. Market development was required. A good example is the national table tennis challenge tournament. It was earning more than 5 million RMB [renminbi, the official currency of the People s Republic of China] per year; now it brings in more than 50 million. It illustrated the sports could earn a lot of money and you had to develop the market. But this could not be accomplished within our former institutional system. So we established CCTV sports-promotion company. I was installed as president after 2006 partly in order to avoid making commercial mistakes. For example, suppose that someone peddled a program to you by offering a bribe. If you accept it and broadcast the program, that would be an unpardonable mistake from the commercial side. So we had to bring the promotion aspect into line with the market system. This was not only fair and reasonable but also a good business decision. The relationship between CCTV Sports and CCTVSE is that CCTVSE is in charge of market development. It provides quality program resources for CCTV Sports. First, it is a base for programming production; second, it is a reservoir for talent; third, it is a source for the creation of profit. As long as CCTVSE is involved, the event must be profitable and have a large audience base and a bright market future. CCTVSE has certainly served as a base for programming production with shows like Sports Personality of the Year, China Longzhou Tournament, Snooker International Championship, and some other regular games like China table tennis super league and China volleyball league. In addition, it has been a real resource for talent, amassing a staff of qualified personnel. We have over 400 staff members employed by CCTV and Hui Cai Company and another approximately 300 employed by CCTVSE. Finally, all of this combines to make profit for the company. It s an organic combination driven by the institutional system and the market mechanism. So that s the relationship between CCTV Sports and CCTVSE. As president of this company, I earn nothing. The general manager earns much than me. At the same time, CCTVSE is a member of China International Television Corporation, so it has no power of appointments, only program connections. Once it leaves the CCTV platform, it s nothing. Wei: International scholars are not familiar with CCTV Sports so far. How many channel resources on aggregate do we currently have, including digital channels?

148 Wei We all know that time conflicts often occurred when different games were scheduled at the same time. Is there a potential nondigital channel to solve this problem? Jiang: We have CCTV5. In addition, we have three digital channels: a golf and tennis channel, a soccer channel, and a billiard channel, with snooker games all day long. Their copyrighted contents were purchased by CCTV. Moreover, we are affiliated with CNTV Sports, a national Web-based sports channel. We are responsible for programming productions. We are planning to transform CCTV HD channel into an HD sports channel. Hence, we could add another channel resource. We are in the planning stage and it could possibly happen very soon. Wei: The interactive relationship between traditional and new media is a perennially hot topic. CCTV Sports is called the real multimedia. What ventures have you made into the press and new media? What has been the impact? How do these factors coordinate and allocate resources? Jiang: CCTV Sports already utilizes the concept of multimedia. Nevertheless, do we have an impact of multimedia? That s debatable. Apart from the TV channel, we have HDTV, as well. In addition, we are making productions for CNTV Sports. It s a sort of extension to traditional media. Just before the inauguration of the Beijing Olympic Games, we published a magazine called The Fifth Channel. This magazine came out only 3 months after the channel came into being. Of course, print media have come across some problems as of late, but we are still operating. What about the new media? I feel CNTV Sports has extended CCTV Sports. It attracts the younger generation obsessed with the ipad and PCs. At times, CNTV Sports has even bypassed CCTV Sports in the ratings. For example, in the women s singles final of 2013 Australian Open, CNTV Sports online users equaled a 0.3 viewer rating, over 1 million weibo (tweet) followers, and over 10,000 comments. It s a huge amount. Remember it s just one game. We broadcast so many games a year. In 2012, at least 490 million Internet users simultaneously watched the broadcasting of CNTV Sports. What does that mean? By contrast, CCTV Sports had a 0.2 rating for a whole year. So CNTV outperformed our traditional audience. Actually, the sports audience has undergone great changes in the past few years. Our data are very similar to those from the United States. More people over 40 are watching sports on TV. Indeed, although all genres have shown an audience dropoff, this has not been the case with sports programming, in large part because the HD experience is still superior to the new media. Many people will watch a TV series on their ipad at home, but they still view sports via TV because sports still plays best on the big screen. Wei: During your term of office, CCTV Sports seemed to focus on top sports documentaries: from Our Olympic Games to Asian Games in China, from Chinese Winter Events Memories to Power of Sports. Obviously, a good deal of human, material, and financial resources went into the production of these splendid pieces. What do you consider the role of the sports documentary on TV sports and what do you see as its aesthetic value? Jiang: A documentary is a way of deepening the record, telling a story of a sporting activity and the people involved. Why did we concentrate on this type of program?

Interview With Heping Jiang 149 First, it is not for ratings. It is quite simply impossible to achieve the high ratings for documentaries on a sports channel that you do on a professional documentary channel. We wanted to express the feelings of a variety of sportsmen and -women. The documentaries recognized a specific event, expressed a subjective point of view, or illustrated specific feelings. Our motivation in producing sports documentaries was not to promote a product but to represent reality as truly as possible. Most of the stories revolved around ordinary people. The documentary Power of Sports narrated the tale of a few marathon participants in the first episode, as well as basketball and some other events. Asian Games in China talked about the real story of the dragon boat. We were not trying to cover every sport but wished to focus on a few areas. For this sort of program, we were definitely aiming at the expression of a particular type of feeling. As for its aesthetic values, every program has its own beauty; it is up to the viewer to interpret it. Wei: You organized and participated in a couple of research reports on sports television and the sports industry. From your perspective, what should the relationship be between TV sports practitioners and research scholars on sport communication? In your work, were you emphasizing Chinese features or an international perspective? Jiang: As practitioners, we focus on practice through studying what we do, while our studies direct us to new practices. These things feed into each other. This is how we move forward and don t simply do the same thing all the time. From the actual broadcasting of the Beijing and London Olympic Games, we had a considerable transformation of concept, even on ways of coverage. In the Beijing Olympiad, we emphasized the scale. In the London Games, we highlighted the sportsmanship, the underlying story, the advanced methods and concepts. This is the result of studies after practice, directing a new round practice. They are interdependent and inseparable. Regarding the second part of your question, Chinese features are the core of our research reports. The market in China is very different from any other around the world. It s because of the so-called Chinese characteristics. Every day I was introduced to a large number of foreign companies. They peddled all sorts of programs, including very popular sports in their countries. Why were these not available in China? It s because of certain Chinese features. The market, the viewing conventions, and consumer mentalities are very different in China. Why is there interest in Chinese women s volleyball but not in men s? The men s game is more exciting, right? That s not the case. Although Chinese men s soccer is terribly weak, on every national match day, the number of viewers is astoundingly high. Of course, they start complaining as soon as the match begins, enjoying the process of their own curses. That s another case of Chinese features. We could not talk about the international perspectives that do not take account of our national conditions. International perspectives are of course required. They afford a series of angles for analyzing and solving the problems. But they do not tell the whole story. Wei: Some Chinese domestic professionals say that CCTV Sports obtained its monopoly position by policy advantages. Would you care to comment? If foreign capital is permitted to get involved with the Chinese television sports market, how would this affect CCTV Sports?

150 Wei Jiang: You re only half right. The degree of market orientation here in China is high. Sports materials are by far the most commercialized. I know what you mean, though. With some megaevents like the summer Olympic Games, soccer s World Cup, or the Asian Games, why have they appeared in their present format? It s not that CCTV Sports derives profits from the monopoly. As you can see, those megaevents were broadcast nationwide. Whether authorized or not, local stations were involved. So what s the problem? You have to realize, CCTV is a central television station. Its position is certainly not the same as that of a Shanghai or Sichuan station. We are a national station. The truth is that our market is 100% open apart from the spectacle sports events mentioned previously. Besides, nearly all of the stations nationwide broadcast the games can you name an exception? So what you said about our monopoly position is absolutely incorrect. The Soccer World Cup lasts only 1 month every 4 years, 17 days for summer Olympic Games. Does CCTV Sports have a monopoly on these events? The answer is no. Our goal is always to be number one a position deserved by a national station. On the other hand, we need to produce programming worthy of a national station. Are there similar programs on the stations of Shanghai and Beijing? So, as I said, you re half right. Actually, the sports market is wide open at the moment. For the Olympic Games, for instance, are there any new media not involved? Is there a major new medium without foreign capital in China? No matter Sohu, Netease, Tencent, and Sina, they re all listed companies, they all have foreign capital. How s that for competition? Besides, I think the core competition is not the copyright. You could not gain a monopoly on the exclusive copyright. Nowadays you can hardly find a sporting event with an exclusive copyright, whether in broadcasting or in new media. How would you do it under the present circumstances? Obviously some are going to do better than others. The qualities of your programs must surpass all your competitors. In this way you could establish your position firmly. If what we produce is not as good as what the Internet produces, all the monopolies in the world are not going to do us any good. Moreover, China s media market environment is disappointing. The theft of broadcasting has existed for a long time. The European Champion s Soccer League is an exclusive copyright for CCTV Sports. But nearly every new medium, as well as some local television stations, broadcasts it. This is unique to the Chinese market. Who shall we litigate with local broadcasting? But for the new media, we could go into court and we must do so soon. When we examine their signals, we can see that a large amount of the content in the new media is from ours. So, it s impossible to achieve a monopoly. In addition, where is the monopoly anyway? The original intention of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television was to create one company to negotiate the copyright. It s the public s loss if we all compete. Don t you see the soccer materials are 100% open? Sometimes our copyright was acquired by local stations. Was not CBA broadcast nationwide? Was not the NBA broadcast worldwide? We don t force the audience to choose us. But they enjoy the broadcast, they want to provide feedback to the broadcasters and color commentators, and so they watch. In sum, I think monopoly is not a magic weapon. A monopoly could not last indefinitely, and, by the way, there s no monopoly at the moment. The most important thing is to improve the quality of your programs

Interview With Heping Jiang 151 in order to keep your audience. If your programs are unattractive and do not meet their needs, the audience is doomed to abandon you. It s a simple and cruel truth. Why should I stay with you when I have so many other good choices? Wei: You have a concurrent post as vice president of the Chinese Table Tennis Association and Chinese Badminton Association, and you are an amateur master in table tennis. Does this affect the CCTV Sports programming consciously or unconsciously? Why are the youth always complaining about too much table tennis broadcasting? Jiang: Chinese TV sports broadcasting is not about your personal issues. Our franchises involve table tennis, badminton, soccer, volleyball, and basketball. Basketball is by far the biggest ingredient, while soccer ranked in second place. Table tennis was maybe fourth or fifth. To sum up, it s not as big as a draw as those other games. So why do people think we excessively broadcast table tennis? How many games have we broadcast in the year of 2013? In fact, not very many. The youngsters complained because they have lost interest. Teenagers are crazy for basketball. They want to watch the NBA in the morning and the CBA in the evening. During the Chinese New Year holiday, we broadcast the NBA every day, even doubleheaders on some days. No one said anything about this. If we had broadcast table tennis every single day, what do you think would have happened? Times are changing. Table tennis players and coaches also complain that there too is little broadcasting for them. Why? Because we broadcast a series of matches that were set up specifically to establish a table tennis world championship. It s not an international event. Why does CCTV Sports keep broadcasting table tennis? First, table tennis is a national sport, no doubt about that. Second, it has broad mass base. In China, viewer ratings for table tennis are consistently high. For a television station, we could not ignore that. Third, this tournament is the top standard in the world, even better than world championship. In 2005, when I was a new to my position, Mr. Cai Zhenhua, then director of table tennis and badminton of GASC, told me about a match that was incredibly fierce, when two world champions, Wang Liqing and Ma Lin, struggled for a position in the Athens Olympic Games. Their coach could not bear to watch and everyone who saw it was entranced by the game. But it wasn t broadcast; few fans know this. When he told me this, it touched me greatly. What about broadcasting that match live? What a match that would have been to see! To tell the truth, the world champion will probably come from whoever qualifies for this tournament. Hence, for those who play table tennis, this is the most enchanting game, no question about that. But for those who complain about the broadcasting of table tennis, I believe most of them never played table tennis. Why has basketball boomed all of a sudden? It s all about Yao Ming. How many fans watched CBA before? Not so many. Because of our comprehensive involvement, we put basketball into a national broadcasting platform, which resulted in its current popularity. As you mentioned just now, because I was vice president of CTTA, the layouts seem a little bit more than usual. I shall say maybe a little, but just 0.01% more. Why? Because I was familiar with it. But on the other hand, as VP, I never earned a penny from that association. I am not required to broadcast table tennis or badminton. I have multiple choices. So there is no basis for that statement.

152 Wei Wei: We are witnessing the transformation of CCTV Sports this year. In the past, CCTV Sports has always focused on the concept of the event year. For instance, this year is an Olympic year, that year is a soccer World Cup year. Now you re emphasizing the concept of season. What is the reason for the change? Jiang: We are going through all sorts of changes in sports. From the end of last year to early this year, our major games were NBA and CBA. They re professional leagues. From March 8, we begin with Chinese Soccer Super League; it will last for 8 months. The summer Olympiad lasts 17 days, the World Cup 1 month. This is no good for a professional sports channel. We have to emphasize the pros. Chinese professional sports requires our platform to promote it. Once professional sports develop, you have more excellent athletes. The national team is not a problem. But the reality is embarrassing. Take China s table tennis super league, for example. It violated the pro s fundamental rules. They urged the national players to play for some local clubs. That s the reverse of what it should be. The correct way is that the national team should collect the best players in league performances. Players of the U.S. basketball team were selected from top players of NBA; that s the regular way. Our table tennis and badminton league are said to be pro leagues. Actually, they are leagues in their imagination only. The professional league has to operate by the real market mechanism. Wei: You have been involved with TV sports for 8 years. Do you have any unaccomplished TV dreams or sports dreams now? If so, what are they? Jiang: No matter TV dream or sports dream, I m a common Chinese citizen. I agree with what General Secretary Xi Jinping said: The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is our Chinese dream. For every single person, he or she is part of the Chinese dream, is a microparticle of the molecular. What I hope most is that our Chinese people could consistently and consciously participate in sports activities. That it becomes an important part of building up people s physical fitness, an important part of their daily lives. That is my dream. As for how to accomplish this, once you have a broad mass basis, we are not afraid if there are more or less sports channels. There are plenty of sports resources and abundant space to accommodate them. New-media resources are unlimited, while TV-channel resources are limited. Once you combine this unlimited and limited, the spring of Chinese TV sports is not far away. Wei: Thank you so much for your time. Jiang: You are welcome.