U.K. strips Chinese state TV channel of licence

U.K. regulators stripped China’s state TV channel of its national broadcasting license on Thursday, after an investigation cited lack of editorial control and links to China’s ruling Communist Party.

The communications watchdog, Ofcom, said it revoked the licence for China Global Television Network, or CGTN, an English language satellite news channel. CGTN had been available on free and pay TV in the U.K.

Regulators started looking into the station after receiving a complaint from a human rights group, Safeguard Defenders, calling for an investigation into its ownership.

Ofcom is also continuing to investigate a slew of other complaints that it violated rules on fairness and accuracy. One was from a former British Consulate employee in Hong Kong, who said he was detained and tortured by Chinese police for information on protesters. Another was by a British corporate investigator who said he was forced to confess while imprisoned in China.

The watchdog said it found that the entity that held the station’s licence, Star China Media Limited, didn’t have editorial responsibility for CGTN’s output, which is a licencing requirement.

Losing its broadcasting license is a major setback for CGTN, which was part of the Chinese government’s push to expand its soft power and burnish its image abroad.