Yahoo Finance China’s state-owned broadcaster fined £225,000
China’s state-owned broadcaster has been fined £225,000 by broadcasting watchdog Ofcom.
The fine comes after the UK regulator stripped China Global Television Network (CGTN) of its UK broadcasting licence.
BBC World News was later banned by China after the country threatened to retaliate.
An Ofcom spokeswoman said: “We’ve today fined Star China Media Limited a total of £225,000 for serious breaches of our fairness, privacy and due impartiality rules on its CGTN service.”
Ofcom’s latest decision comes after Peter Humphrey, a British investigator, complained to UK regulators about Chinese state TV.
He complained that programmes included footage of him which made it appear, falsely, that he was voluntarily confessing to crimes.
Mr Humphrey and his wife were detained during a probe into corruption at pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline.
He said he became “collateral damage in a wider dispute” between the company and the Chinese authorities.
After being released from prison, he told the BBC: “I was constantly harassed in prison over signing a thing they call an admission of guilt and a statement of remorse.
“I never signed those documents because I did not admit to having committed that offence as charged.”
Ofcom has fined the broadcaster £100,000 after upholding Humphrey’s fairness and privacy complaint, and £125,000 is in respect of due impartiality breaches in its coverage of the Hong Kong protests.
