Chinese Authorities Regulate Sexual Content in Broadcast

commercials with sexual implications are often seen on Chinese television

Prompted by some sex talk programs on several radio stations in Sichuan, China’s broadcast regulator has banned television and radio stations from planning, producing and broadcasting programs relating to sex life, experience or medicines.

Calling such programs “obscene,” the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said programs containing sexual content are not allowed for “any reason or under any name,” and vowed to punish those responsible for the programs on Sichuan provincial and Chengdu municipal radio stations, both run by local governments.

As Chinese broadcasters, all owned and supervised by the government, pursue higher profits, programs containing sexual content are gaining more air time, while the central authorities still take sex as a taboo in mass media like television because it “seriously pollutes the social atmosphere, harms the physical and mental health of the young and undermines the image of broadcasters.”

The SARFT has made several efforts in recent years trying to keep the air clean. Just last month, the administration issued a ban on commercials with “sex implications” in addition to those for sex improvement products.

Despite all the bans and regulations, Chinese public are only seeing more and more sexual content, in one way or another, in the media around them.