In line with plans announced a short while ago, a digital television channel featuring fashion, cosmetics and etiquette will start a nationwide trial operation on 11 November in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. Another seven pay channels based in Beijing and Tianjin municipalities, and in Liaoning and Shangdong provinces will start at the same time.
China plans to sign up 30 million digital TV subscribers by 2005 and stop providing analogue signals by 2015. It is also expected that high-definition TV programmes of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics will be transmitted to the world.
China now has 370m TV sets and more than 1.2 billion TV viewers. At present, most Chinese TV stations are only capable of transmitting a maximum of 50 TV channels simultaneously. Digital TV will be able to provide up to 500 channels.