Academy Awards show sees a larger presence in China

China will be tuning in to the Oscars in record numbers and hoping that the ceremony will be free of any embarrassing political inci- dents.

China Central Television, which relayed the Academy Awards to the world’s most populous country last year for the first time, was the first channel to get broadcasting rights this year, the Xinhua news agency said.

Local television stations also have been granted rights to screen Hollywood’s annual celebration, which begins at 9 a.m. Beijing time March 1.

Xinhua did not say if CCTV would show the Oscars live, but, if so, the network will be keeping its fingers crossed. During the live airing of the U.S. Super Bowl earlier this month, state television let through the fleeting image of a man blocking a Beijing tank column, a politically sensitive photo that came to symbolize the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.

The Chinese government has labeled the protests a counter-revolutionary rebellion aimed at toppling the Communist Party and says using troops to end it was justified.

In 1993, Oscar presenter Richard Gere declared his sympathy for Tibet, a part of Chinese territory that he said should be allowed independence.

China, with a population of about 1.3 billion, boasts more than 2,000 TV stations and more than 4,000 TV channels. At least 50 provincial TV stations have satellite ability.

“In this sense, China’s TV market is of great potential for foreign programs, such as Oscar and Grammy awarding ceremonies,” Xinhua quoted Shanghai East Movie Cannel deputy director Xiao Hong as saying.