CCTV Continues Its Assault On Baidu

• Posted by bbishop
• on August 16th, 2011

China’s main TV network CCTV is running a concerted campaign to discredit Baidu ($BIDU).

Yesterday we discussed the first TV report and the possible CCTV motivations and impact on Baidu. Last night CCTV broadcast a new report criticizing Baidu’s Tieba product. Tieba is a massively trafficked bulletin board service (BBS) that Baidu is upgrading with social features in an attempt to make it the core of its (so far failing) social media efforts. CCTV was critical of both the content management and the advertising practices within the Tieba product.

I have heard from a couple of friends in the Chinese media industry that CCTV has a week of attacks on Baidu planned. That would be unprecedented and potentially damaging not only to Baidu’s brand but also to its business, as the CCTV coverage may lead advertisers, many of them SMEs, to spend less or pull their ad buys if they come to believe that Baidu is overcharging or otherwise mistreating them.

CCTV has created a minisite dedicated to “building trust on the Internet”, with most of the items so far attacking Baidu. Investors in Chinese Internet stocks like $SINA $YOKU $SOHU $NTES Tencent, Alibaba et al should be wondering if Baidu is the only target of this CCTV campaign, or if other firms are next. [UPDATE: On Thursday CCTV changed the name of the minisite to be Baidu-specific. Perhaps other firms now have nothing to worry about? END UPDATE]

So much for the theory bandied about in the wake of Google’s ($GOOG) retreat that Baidu is a state-owned, favored firm. Perhaps against foreigners, but not inside China.

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