A fraction of households had TV sets when Xinwen Lianbo started broadcasting. But as China entered the age of mass consumption a few years later, TV news became the perfect vehicle for the party to try to guide public opinion. Xinwen Lianbo’s ratings peaked in the mid-1990s, when 200m-250m tuned in. Now the audience is 130m-140m, though the fall is not as big a worry for the party as it might seem: in 2003 China Central Television launched a 24-hour news channel, giving viewers complete freedom to choose when to catch up with the latest propaganda. Xinwen Lianbo still has more viewers than any other TV news on Earth.
