TV & VIDEO - July 26, 1988

TV can be serious business in China: Over the weekend, a Chinese Communist Party local secretary and a TV station manager were sacked when 12 minutes of a pornographic video were inadvertently broadcast to thousands of households in Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China. The China Legal Daily News reported Monday that the accidental broadcast of a segment of “Paris Brothels”--which a station worker was copying onto his own tape--cost the worker and two colleagues jail terms. . . . In an unrelated matter, one Qiao Yonghong was executed Monday after being convicted of taking bribes from companies speculating in much-coveted color TV sets, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Qiao, an employee of the Beijing Communications and Electrical Co., in one instance received the equivalent of $10,800 for selling 200 color TVs to a company. In a country where consumer demand far outstrips the meager home electronics supply, the Chinese black market can sell color TVs for several times the official retail cost.