Beijing- China Central TV, the national broadcaster, will start broadcasting high-definition programs in October, and the Chinese standard on terrestrial digital broadcasting will be implemented in August, according to Zhang Haitao, deputy director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).

 

At the opening of the 15th China Content Broadcasting Network exhibition, Zhang said SARFT had formed six working groups in cooperation with several other ministries to implement the terrestrial digital broadcasting standard. Du Baichuan, chief engineer of the SARFT,  said China will provide digital TV, high-definition TV, mobile TV and Internet protocol TV as scheduled before the Olympic Games kick off in seven host cities next year.

 

There are more than 360 million TV households in China and 140 million families have cable TV, but there are only 12 million digital TV users. China Daily notes the transition to digital TV may be difficult because many Chinese households already get more than 30 satellite channels and will not want to pay more for similar programming.