CCTV restrictions on pharmaceutical and alcohol advertising

China Central Television (CCTV) recently imposed restrictions on the broadcast time of medical advertisements, which took effect from January 2012.

Medical advertisements, including orthopaedic hospitals, will be restricted to broadcast on CCTV-1 after 6:00 pm on January 1, 2012.

Other channels - Financial Channel CCTV-2, Documentary CCTV-9, International Channel CCTV-4 and News, Children's and Foreign Language Channels will completely stop such advertising.

The CCTV announcement stated that this was due to feedback from the audience. Industry sources pointed out that this measure will not have a significant impact on CCTV's revenue, because as a state-owned television station, its television channels have played a limited number of medical advertisements in the past.

In September, CCTV issued a similar advertising limit for alcoholic beverages and it will take effect next year. CCTV said that in the future only 12 TV sessions will be available for Chinese liquor producers to bid. Outside these 12 time periods, liquor producers can only sponsor PSAs, and advertisements cannot contain words such as bottles and glasses.

In mid-August, CCTV criticized Baidu for allowing products such as weight loss and pharmaceuticals to easily pass its ad review system.