The majority of the viewing audience watched the live TV report on the first day of the Party congress, a survey released yesterday by AGB Nielsen Media Research found.

For the survey, about 400 million citizens above four years old from four municipalities - Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing - and six provinces, including Guangdong in the south, Zhejiang in the east and Liaoning in the northeast, were covered through a TV rating monitoring system.

During the whole of Monday, according to the survey's results, up to 73 percent of the monitored TV audience watched special programs and news reports related to the congress at some point.

The high viewer figures indicate that the majority of Chinese people are attentive to the Party congress, which charted a clearer roadmap for the country's future development, political experts said.

The survey also showed that among the 257 monitored channels in the monitored areas, 74 channels broadcasted or rebroadcasted the congress' opening ceremony on Monday, according to the television audience measurement research company

The congress was covered by national broadcaster CCTV, with channels CCTV1 and CCTV News devoting scheduling to it, while most satellite, and provincial-level and city-level TV stations also provided coverage, Xinhua reported.

The survey found that some eight provincial-level TV channels in Hubei Province alone broadcasted the opening ceremony, the most within all the monitored areas.

The reception rate in Wuhan, capital of Hubei, was as high as 50 percent, topping all the monitored cities, it said.

In other words, among all of Wuhan's residents who were watching TV between 8:40 and 11:40 am on Monday, half of them watched the Congress opening.

Other cities where a large share of the viewing public tuned in the congress included Jinan, with 47 percent of people watching the opening ceremony and Tianjin Municipality, where 41 percent tuned in.

The survey also found high reception rates among the audience in Shanghai and Beijing.

(China Daily 10/18/2007 page5)