British broadcast watchdog to punish CGTN for biased coverage of Hong Kong protests
- Reports ‘did not give due weight to a wide range of voices on this matter of major political controversy’, regulator says
- Star China Media, which holds the British licence for the Chinese state network, claims protesters didn’t want to talk to Chinese or Mandarin-language channels
British broadcast regulators have found that the Chinese broadcaster CGTN was repeatedly in “serious failure of compliance” of impartiality standards in its coverage of the protests in Hong Kong last year, a move that could increase tensions between the two countries.
The network, which has its European headquarters in West London, could face fines running into the millions of dollars or, in the most serious punishment, have its British licence revoked.
The investigation by the broadcast watchdog Ofcom focused on four episodes of the news magazine show The World Today and one episode of China24 that aired between August 11 and November 21.
In its defence, the licensee for CGTN, Star China Media Limited, said that pro-democracy activists had not wanted to talk to Chinese or Mandarin-language channels and that viewers knew CGTN showed a pro-Chinese, non-Western view of world events.
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“Our investigations found that CGTN failed to preserve due impartiality in five news programmes,” an Ofcom spokesman said on Tuesday.
