China may bar TV from Square for Olympics
BEIJING (AP) - March 21, 2008 A ban on live broadcasts would wreck the plans of NBC and other
major international networks, who have paid hundreds of millions of
dollars to broadcast the Aug. 8-24 games and are counting on
eye-pleasing live shots from the iconic square.
The rethinking of Beijing's earlier promise to broadcasters
comes as the government has poured troops into Tibetan areas
wracked by anti-government protests this month and stepped up
security in cities, airports and entertainment venues far from the
unrest.
In another sign of the government's unease, 400 American Boy
Scouts who had been promised they could onto the field following a
March 15 exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San
Diego Padres were prevented from doing so by police.
"It was never specifically mentioned to me it was because of
Tibet that there were extra controls, but there were all these
changes at the last minute," said a person involved in the Major
League Baseball event who asked for anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak to the media.
The communist government's resorting to heavy-handed measures
runs the risk of undermining Beijing's pledge to the International
Olympic Committee that the games would promote greater openness in
what a generation ago was still an isolated China. If still in
place by the games, they could alienate the half-million foreigners
expected at the games.
Like the Olympics, live broadcasts from Tiananmen Square were
meant to showcase a friendly, confident China - one that had put
behind it the deadly 1989 military assault on democracy
demonstrators in the vast plaza that remains a defining image for
many foreigners.
"Tiananmen is the face of China, the face of Beijing so many
broadcasters would like to do live or recorded coverage of the
square," said Yosuke Fujiwara, the head of broadcast relations for
the Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Co., or BOB, a joint-venture
between Beijing Olympic organizers and an IOC subsidiary. BOB
coordinates and provides technical services for the TV networks
with rights to broadcast the Olympics, such as NBC.
Earlier this week, however, officials with the Beijing Olympics
Organizing Committee, or BOCOG, told executives at BOB that the
live shots were canceled, according to three people familiar with
the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized
to speak to the media.
"We learned that standup positions would be canceled," one of
these people said. "No explanation was given for the change."
Sun Weijia, the BOCOG official in charge of dealing with BOB,
declined comment, referring the matter to press officers, three of
whom also declined to comment. IOC offices were closed Friday for
the Easter holiday; two spokeswomen did not immediately return
e-mails and phone calls seeking comment.
The decision by BOCOG may not be final. The change was relayed
verbally, one person said. All three hoped that IOC President
Jacques Rogge and other leading IOC officials, expected in Beijing
next month for regularly scheduled meetings, may be able to prevail
on BOCOG to change its mind.
If the decision stands, it would be a blow to the TV networks
whose money to buy the right to broadcast the games accounts for
more than half the IOC's revenues. The biggest spender is NBC. It
paid $2.3 billion for the rights for three Olympics from 2004 to
2008 - Athens, Turin and Beijing.
Officials at NBC refused to comment.
The unrest - which broke out March 10 in the Tibetan capital of
Lhasa and has since spread across western China - and the
government's harsh response underscores the communist leaders'
unease as the Olympics approach.
With paramilitary police patrolling Beijing at night and
journalists being expelled from Tibetan areas, security measures
are on par with those not seen since the government mobilized
police to crush the Falun Gong spiritual movement in 1999-2000.
Activist groups have said for months that they planned to use
the Olympics to promote their causes. But the challenge faced by
China's leadership seems to grow more imminent.
Aside from Tibet protests, the government said it foiled a plot
this month by Muslim separatists in western China to blow up a
China Southern Boeing 757. Foreign activists angry about China's
support for Sudan, which is party to a civil war in Darfur, said
this week they would demonstrate in Beijing during the games.
After the Icelandic singer Bjork shouted "Tibet!" at the
finale of a Shanghai concert this month, officials ordered tighter
scrutiny of all performances.
The Boy Scouts seemed to get caught in a response to both the
sometimes violent Tibet protests and Bjork; police canceled all
on-field entertainment for the exhibition baseball games, including
the singing of the Chinese and U.S. national anthems.
BOCOG officials began signaling their discomfort with live
broadcasts in Tiananmen Square to the IOC a year ago but
discussions went back and forth, according to the people involved.
The square - overlooked by a large portrait of communist founder
Mao Zedong - has been a magnet for protests for decades.
---
AP Sports writer Stephen Wade contributed to this story.
---
NBC is owned by General Electric Co.