What the CCTV Building Really Means

In the Hutong

And back in the proverbial saddle

1136 hrs.

Beyond its visually stunning architecture, Rem Koolhaas' new headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) is provoking commentary for a range of reasons, not least being the curiosity of an old-media giant spending so much money on an iconic building.

As tempting as it might be to suggest that hubris combined with a sense of monumentalism compelled CCTV to burst into Beijing's central business district in such a spectacular way, but I think there is actually more to it.

I think we're seeing the beginnings of a new attitude over at CCTV, one that recognizes the massive challenges the state broadcaster faces as it struggles to sustain growth, and I think the new building is neatly symbolic of that. Check out "The Bowing Tower" at Media's website and let me know what you think.

Comments

[Cam]

David,

While I appreciate your optimism regarding CCTV's apparent forthcoming advertiser-driven programming (it is New Years, after all) I highly doubt we'll be seeing evidence of your prognostication anytime soon.

Having worked at CCTV for a long time, and having many friends currently on staff, CCTV is no closer today to serving the needs of the audience than it was five years ago. Perhaps small (very small) steps are being made, but barely large enough to be traced at all.

CCTV's main goal is to serve the elders sipping green tea in Zhongnanhai. It is they who decides what should be on the television, what should be the lead, how stories should be presented, and which politician deserves how many minutes on each broadcast. Whether CCTV loses money is irrelevant, as it has the PIN number for the Central Government's bank account. And when other stations (such as Hunan Satellite TV) introduce more compelling programming, CCTV still reserves the right to shut them down through its cronies at SARFT.

Believe me when I tell you CCTV is a long - long - way from becoming a modern, advertiser-driven television station -- no matter how nice their new building might be.

[David]

Cam,

Fair enough. Call me an optimist, then. ;-)

Seriously, the "beginnings of a new attitude" that I see are just that: beginnings. They manifest themselves in places in the organization that are far from the Taizhang's desk, including the advertising department and some of the lower-tier channels. The problem, of course, is that these folks are on the effective periphery of decision-making at CCTV, so they are only able to improve things for advertisers on the margin.

Yet I'm a pollyanna about the possibility for CCTV to change. I'm going to leave off explaining why for a follow-up post rather than try to squeeze it into a comment. Suffice to say that CCTV is coming under growing internal and external pressure to pull itself out of the late 20th century.

That said, the road is going to be long and CCTV will move slowly. The question is whether it - or any other Chinese broadcaster, for that matter - can change quickly enough to make a difference.

Thanks for your comment.

[David Oliver]

I think in the years ahead the CCTV building will come to symbolize many of the things that are wrong in China today. What could be a better example of state owned companies wasting money than the national TV broadcaster spending so much on a vanity project, and in a prime CBD area. And I don't think advertisers will be that impressed.

Health and education are crumbling in the countryside and this is what taxpayers money is getting spent on. I have no doubt the Sichuan earthquake victims still living in tents will be rejoicing when it officially opens. Will we see more of these types of projects once SOE's get their hands on some of the 4 trillion stimulus package? Aren't there some SOE's behind the plan to build another mega skyscraper in Shanghai?

[David]

Mr. Oliver,

I sincerely doubt sophisticated advertisers will be much impressed by anything CCTV does short of delivering decent ROI on the advertising dollar. There seem to be an almost inexhaustible supply of the other kind of advertiser, however, and you need look no further than the recent CCTV advertising auction for adequate evidence of that.

Freudian inadequacy references aside, the CCTV tower is an aspirational symbol. CCTV built it because it wants to be more than what it is, or it wants to be seen as more than what it is. What that something is, I think, varies from person to person, department to department inside CCTV. I think some people inside really want CCTV to become more like CNN, like Sky, like Fox. The question is whether it can become that. Cam and I agree that if so, it will be a slow process.

I have no idea where the money came from to build the tower, but I suspect it came out of CCTV's own advertising revenues, not the government general fund. (If anybody knows different and can prove it, please email me).

As much as I agree with you that more money should be going building more and better schools, rebuilding Beichuan, and getting melamine out of our food, I think we are talking about two different pools of money.

(Man, I can't BELIEVE I've put myself in a position to be DEFENDING CCTV. Sheesh.)

[David Oliver]

David,

If CCTV was a private company they could do what they liked but they are a SOE, and pretty much a monopolist as well, so I don't see much distinction between advertising revenues and taxpayer money. Regardless of where the money came from I think there were much better ways to spend it. If the national TV broadcaster in a western country proposed a building like that in a prime CBD area there would be public outrage.

However I do agree that one of the aims was to project a new image. I get a prime view of the tower from my apartment and would love to stand on the helipad on top one day.

Happy new year.

[Terry]

In China ,we just talk about its bigpants-like appearance as jokes.Actually there are so many experimental architectural designs in metropolis like Shanghai and Beijing,which has meanwhile led to intense controversy.I think the reason why almost each symbolic highrise of this kind in China has a sour nickname arouse from ordinary ppl's dissatisfaction but having no alternative.The mammoth financial gap between the SOEs and SMEs is too difficult to get improved in such an environment.

[Dan Touff]

David,

I enjoyed the post. The symbolic picture you paint is indeed compelling. However, I agree with the tone of several comments here, that the article misses another key symbol about the building: the price tag.

One argument that I often hear thrown around regarding marquee projects like CCTV and the Bird's Nest, is that these projects could never be built in market economies, where competitive cost pressures force developers to be more modest in their aspirations.

It seems to me that, in many ways, the decision to be so ostentatious with the project reflects the old guard, propaganda ministry mentality that media is a state monopoly and doesn't have to bow to the pressures of competition.

Doesn't the new CCTV HQ strike you as a bit like the Ministry of Truth?

Joking aside - there's clearly at least some push pull going on in CCTV (I like the 'aspirational' concept mentioned above). But no matter which neighborhood they decided to build in, the new CCTV tower still reflects their entrenched top-down mentality, in an increasingly bottom-up media world.

Enjoyed the article David,

Cheers
Dan