Foreign Animation Banned from China’s Prime-time Slots

BEIJING, August 14: Effective September 1, cartoon series
produced outside of China will be banned from local broadcast between the hours
of 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., in an effort to give a boost to the local animation
sector.

The ban, which has not yet been formally announced, is said
to be in response to the popularity of anime in the Chinese market, and comes
amid other efforts by regulators to clamp down on international content. It
also follows a 2004 edict mandating that Chinese cartoons had to account for at
least 60 percent of a channel’s animation output.