The Constitution of the People's Republic of China guarantees citizens' freedom of speech and information. Since the 1980s, the mass media are growing more diversified as they extend their reach throughout China through a multiplicity of transmission methods including satellite, wireless and wired systems. Today there are over 2,000 newspapers, over 9,000 magazines, 273 radio stations and 352 TV stations. By the end of 2005, there were 774 medium- and short-wave radio transmitting and relay stations, 125.69 million households with access to cable television, and 1.22 million households in 30 cities with access to cable digital television, covering 94.5 percent and 95.8 percent of the population respectively
News Agencies
Headquartered in Beijing, Xinhua News Agency is China's official news agency, as well as one of the world's major news agencies with more than 100 branches in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and other regions. In 2003, its subordinate Xinhua Financing Network Ltd. formed an international alliance with Agence France-Presse (AFP) of Finance. Xinhua Financial Network Ltd. purchased the news agencies of AFP Asian Finance in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore and eight other Asian countries and regions, which expanded the coverage of Xinhua News Agency's international network.
China News Service, also Beijing-based, mainly supplies news to overseas Chinese, foreign citizens of Chinese origin, and compatriots in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Special Administrative Region, and Taiwan.
Newspapers
Between 1950 and 2000, the number of Chinese newspapers increased nearly ten-fold. In 2005, more than 1,000 kinds of daily newspaper were published in China, with their circulation reaching 100 million, the highest figure of any country in the world. Targeted at different reader groups, newspaper formats are becoming increasingly diverse and colorful. Recent years have seen an important trend of newspaper reorganization.
To date, 39 newspaper groups have been established, for example, Beijing Daily Newspaper Group, Wenhui Xinmin Associated Newspaper Group and Guangzhou Daily Newspaper Group. Since 2003, trans-regional cooperation among the print media has become a new trend. The Beijing News, invested and run by the Guangming Daily Newspaper Group and the Nanfang Daily Newspaper Group, was the first to receive formal government approval to publish trans-regionally. Not to be left out, Shanghai also presented Orient Observation Weekly, its largest shareholder being the Beijing-based Xinhua News Agency.
Radio
China National Radio, China's official radio station, has nine channels broadcasting a total of 200 hours per day via satellite. Every province, autonomous region and municipality has its own local radio stations.
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