Schlock Goes East.(Brief Article)

Tiandu isn't exactly a model city. The vice mayor's son dabbles in smuggling and other gangster pursuits, and his father uses his influence to protect him. His company employs murderous henchmen, who use jars of human fingers to scare up cooperation. Official blackmail is commonplace. A local customs officer recently discovered a shipment of smuggled Mercedeses. Before he could take action, he was lured to a brothel, plied with alcohol and filmed in bed with a hooker. Like most of Tiandu's population, he became a co-conspirator in the culture of corruption.

Tiandu is one of the sleaziest places that never existed. The setting of China's hit television series "Black Hole," the fictional city is loosely based on Fuyang City, Anhui province, site of an actual 1998 corruption case. It is a striking example of how far China has come since the days when its state TV offered a steady diet of propaganda, glorifying Communist Party bosses as models of virtue. "This kind of story would have been impossible a few years ago," says Zhang Dandan, vice president of Macau Five Star TV. "The government knows people are smarter now, and that it can no longer lie to them."

The edge is likely to get sharper. About 90 percent of China's 400 million homes now have at least one TV set. At least one in four has cable. Last year ad revenue reached an estimated $11.2 billion. With China opening up, the government has allowed News Corp., Disney, Star TV and AOL Time-Warner limited access. Rating companies like ACNielsen are getting their "people meters" into more homes, offering ratings proof that old entertainment formulas aren't working. This February state broadcaster CCTV put out its annual New Year's variety marathon, the usual five hours of patriotic songs and lame dance routines. Newspaper reviewers slammed it. In one poll, 62 percent of viewers called it "unsatisfactory."

Once a state monopoly, CCTV can only lose ground with the same old fare. CCTV has 10 channels that reach all over China. But as government subsidies fall and ad revenues rise, the number of city and provincial stations is increasing too fast to count. Estimates run from under 2,000 to more than 3,000. To lure viewers, more stations are buying or imitating Western shows. Recent arrivals dubbed into Chinese include "The X-Files," about an FBI agent who uncovers a U.S. government conspiracy to rule the Earth in collusion with invading aliens. "Teletubbies" has been translated as "Antenna ...