China To Crackdown On Unauthorised Radio Broadcasts (www.bgr.in)

An anonymous reader writes: Reportedly, in a national campaign aided by more than 30,000 airwave monitors, in over past six months, more than 500 sets of equipment for making unauthorised radio broadcasts were seized in China. The campaign, launched on February 15 by the State Council, resulted in 1,796 cases related to illegal radio stations, after 301,840 hours of monitoring from February to July, according to an online statement by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The number of incidents was down by 50 per cent from April to August, the China Daily quoted the statement as saying. So-called pirate radios have appeared in most parts of China since 2015 and this "has been a channel for criminals to defraud and promote aphrodisiacs, along with counterfeit and poor-quality medicine," according to the Ministry of Public Security's Criminal Investigation Department. The operating cost of a pirate radio is low, but profit can be high. A pirate radio station that broadcasts advertisements for aphrodisiacs can pocket more than 70,000 yuan ($10,500) a month, with an overhead cost of no more than 10,000 yuan, investigators said in a post on Sina Weibo. It said most spare parts for broadcasting equipment can be bought on the internet.

Comments

Re: Smells rather suspicious

[npslider]

I suspect the reason it's a problem in China is because the government tightly regulates internet access there, so the quacks have gone to the airwaves instead. They're dealing with radio spam.

China tightly regulates Internet access. From what? Things the government does not want the people to hear. Going to the airwaves as an alternative to avoid Internet censorship is an understandable option for dissenters to take.

I'm sure true Radio spam is there, it's everywhere else after all. But I suspect China's definition of radio spam is a bit different than yours or mine.

Worldwide, pirate radio has been around for as long as radio has been regulated, but I think China's situation has more to do with politics than the good of the people.