In recent days CCTVthe television channel that broadcasts the World Cup matches underway in Qatar to China, is reducing the shots of the audience in the stands as much as possible: when the international direction shows the crowd of fans, without masks, the Chinese direction replaces the images with tighter shots of players or coaches.
The reason is that for days in China there have been large and exceptional protests against the strict limitations imposed by the zero COVID strategy adopted by the government, and showing that there are no restrictions in Qatar and that fans can safely not wear masks could fuel the demonstrations that the Chinese regime is trying to suppress. The images from the World Cup stands would in fact highlight for the Chinese public the uniqueness of the country’s situation in dealing with the pandemic, in stark contrast to the rest of the world, where restrictions have largely been lifted.
Chinese television direction, like that of other countries, can intervene on the images provided by international direction, deciding what to broadcast and what not. However, Chinese television broadcasts the matches with a delay of about thirty seconds compared to the live broadcast.
It is a precautionary practice already adopted in the past by China in the case of live event broadcasts, which allows censorship to intervene and replace the shots to be broadcast. In fact, Chinese television is very attentive to situations that could be “problematic”, such as the display by fans of banners or flags subject to censorship (this is the case of that of Tibet).
The World Cup in Qatar is the first major global sporting event to take place in conditions similar to the pre-pandemic ones, following the strict protocols of the Tokyo 2021 Olympics and the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. Despite the absence of the Chinese national team, the World Cup is an event with a large following in China: however, the government has invited not to organize collective viewings of the matches, even in areas not subject to lockdown.
So I thought it was BS that China’s govt broadcaster was censoring shots of fans at the World Cup due to lockdown anger back home. But it’s true. Here are live feeds from SBS & CCTV (which has a 32 second delay). As@DreyerChinaexplained, CCTV avoids crowd close ups: pic.twitter.com/wWui0cTdkC
— Bill Birtles (@billbirtles) November 27, 2022
The images of the World Cup opening ceremony had caused debates and many controversial posts in China on WeChat and Weibo, the country’s two main social networks: the Chinese public was struck by the absence of masks and social distancing, just as various cities of China were subjected to strict lockdowns, mass testing and other radical measures as the number of cases grew.
In the following days, as observed by various journalists who compared the different broadcasts, CCTV he eliminated the shots of the audience in matches, preferring to always film the pitch (even if occasionally some fans without a mask escaped censorship cuts).
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