中国国际广播电台开始在美国本土24小是播音

重大新闻，所以连夜贴出，中国国际广播电台（state-owned Chinese Radio International ）（翻得对不对？）

Chinese lease Galveston radio station for broadcasts

GALVESTON — George Lee was stunned Saturday to hear a Chinese news agency broadcasting during the time his news and variety program usually aired on Galveston's only radio station.

“It was so bizarre, I thought I must be in a coma, and I'm dreaming this,” Lee said.

Station manager Julian Arango had phoned Lee on New Year's Eve and told him that his Electric Theater Radio Hour wouldn't be broadcast as usual the next day because KGBC 1540 was being leased.

Since Saturday KGBC has been broadcasting the state-owned Chinese Radio International along with some hip hop, reggae and other assorted music offerings. “From China for the world, this is CRI,” an announcer says in a smooth radio voice with the hint of an accent.

CRI has an international news roundup, but most of the English-language broadcast focuses on China. “Avatar has landed in the Chinese mainland,” a newscaster said about the latest U.S. hit movie.

Another segment touted the benefits of increased government payments to small Chinese businesses.

“The thing that amazes me is why Radio International China Beijing?” said Glenn Richards, KGBC morning show producer until last weekend. “It's not really geared to anybody locally.”

CRI may describe itself as the BBC of China, but its goal is to burnish China's image, said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

“This is information being provided by a government with a long and inglorious history with regards to freedom of information,” Richardson said.

The Chinese government has made a concerted effort the last few years to increase the global reach of state-owned media, she said. “CRI popping up in Galveston is symptomatic of a much larger trend.”

The small, straw-colored KGBC building on Pelican Island is the last remaining radio station in Galveston.

Uncertain is whether it will continue as a platform for CRI.

Station owner Gabriel Arango, president of Siga Broadcasting Corp., said he has signed a letter of intent for a five-year lease with a well-known California broadcaster whose name he can't reveal because of a confidentiality agreement.

The broadcast arrangement with CRI was made through the prospective lessee, Gabriel Arango said. “I have no knowledge about CRI negotiations,” he said. He said the CRI broadcast was a test and that he understood that the lessee was considering a Christian format.

But Billy Chung, a CRI agent in City of Industry, Calif., said CRI officials in Beijing told him that KGBC would be the first station in the United States to broadcast CRI 24 hours a day.

CRI has been broadcasting in the U.S. at least since 1993, usually by buying one- or two-hour chunks of air time on local stations. KXYZ 1320 in Houston once carried CRI.

Alan Pendleton, vice president of New World Media in Falls Church, Va., said his company's stations in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia were the first to broadcast CRI.

Pendleton, whose stations broadcast in 12 languages, said that the Chinese initially were unfamiliar with U.S. business methods and were taken advantage of in their early dealings.

The first broadcasts were translations of domestic Chinese programs that were heavy on statistics. “It was like listening to the crop report,” Pendleton said.

The Chinese have since grown more sophisticated in their business acumen and their broadcasting, he said.

One of the first things they learned was that blatant propaganda doesn't work, Pendleton said. CRI has a point of view, but doesn't resort to fabrications, he said.

Jim Woo, Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Texas secretary, welcomed CRI as another source of information about China for second- and third-generation Chinese who primarily speak English. He said there are substantial numbers of Chinese in Galveston, Texas City and Clear Lake .

He conceded that CRI had a bias and left out information that the Chinese government considered embarrassing, but that disadvantage was offset by the ready access to counterbalancing news sources.

KGBC went through a series of owners until Siga, which owns five other Texas stations, purchased it in 2002 for about $1 million, Julian Arango said. Gabriel Arango said he tried several music formats before letting his son, Julian, take over as manager and make an unsuccessful effort to attract advertising with a local format.

“Could the people of Galveston not care about Chinese news?” Gabriel Arango asked. “That may be true, but apparently they didn't like Galveston news either.”

harvey.rice@chron.com