"NTDTV" redirects here. For the television station in the Northern Territory, Australia, see NTD (Australian TV station). For the major television station in India, see NDTV.
NTD was founded in 2001 by practitioners of the Falun Gongnew religious movement.[2][1] The station has a regular focus on the promotion of traditional Chinese culture and western classical arts, and devotes extensive news coverage to Chinese human rights issues,[citation needed] scrutinizing abuses of power by the Chinese Communist Party.[17][18] The name was chosen to invoke the ancient Tang dynasty that the company considers "the golden age of Chinese spirituality and civilization ... known for its high moral standards and unparalleled cultural achievements."[19]
The Christian Science Monitor in 2004 called NTD "the first independent Chinese-language TV station in the US".[20]The Wall Street Journal said in 2007 that NTD "serves as a platform for China's pro-democracy dissidents, who have been torn by internal squabbling and lack of organization".[21]
In 2009, NTD had an income of $5.3 million, including $2.4 million from 3,000 donations. In 2011, NTD had a staff of 80, nearly all volunteers.[22]
By 2016, NTD's revenues were $7.4 million. In 2017, they more than doubled to $18 million, according to reports from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.[23][3]
NTD started broadcasting to the UK on Sky TV on February 22, 2021[24] on channel 190 (previously used for MyTV channel), and subsequently on Freeview channel 271.
As of 2022, NTD reached about 6 million US households.[4]
Relationship with Falun Gong
NTD, along with The Epoch Times and Sound of Hope, was founded by Falun Gong practitioners who had immigrated to the West. Many of its staff are Falun Gong adherents who volunteer their time and services. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the former president Zhong Lee stated that the company's original purpose was to "speak as the voice of Falun Gong", but that "media can also play a big role pushing democracy in China".[18]
NTD is one of the organizations that Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi has referred to as "our media", along with The Epoch Times newspaper and the Shen Yun dance troupe.[3][25]
Content
NTD broadcasts programming regularly on its moderated YouTube channels, which include NTD Evening News, NTD Business News, China in Focus,Capital Report, NTD UK News and other shows.[26] Material is also presented under 'NTD News' and 'NTD Video', as well as 'NTD Daily', a daily email of content.
In 2019, NTD released a docudrama produced by Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart News chairman and advisor to Donald Trump. The film, Claws of the Red Dragon, is about the telecom company Huawei and the Chinese government.[27][28] Bannon said that, in his dealings with NTD, the group was always able to provide enough funding when he asked for it.[29]
Promotion of misinformation and conspiracy theories
On April 7, 2020, NTD uploaded a video released by The Epoch Times.[33] The video was flagged by Facebook as "partly false" for "the unsupported hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is a bioengineered virus released from a Wuhan research laboratory." The video featured Judy Mikovits, an anti-vaccination activist.[33][34] The fact-checker Health Feedback said of the video that "several of its core scientific claims are false and its facts, even when accurate, are often presented in a misleading way."[35]
On August 6, 2020, Facebook removed hundreds of fake accounts by a digital company called TruthMedia that promoted Epoch Times and NTD content and pro-Trump conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protests in the United States.[36][37] The operation included 303 Facebook accounts, 181 pages, 44 Facebook groups and 31 Instagram accounts,[38] which in total were followed by more than 2 million people.[37]Snopes and NBC News reported that TruthMedia had ties to the Epoch Media Group,[39][37] but Stephen Gregory, publisher of The Epoch Times, denied this.[37]
In October 2021, NTD aired a report claiming that more people were dying due to side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine than the virus itself in Taiwan. The fact-checking website Polygraph.info found that the majority of people who died after vaccination had succumbed to pre-existing conditions or chronic diseases.[40][41]
In September 2022, NTD promoted rumors that a "coup" against Xi Jinping had occurred and that he was under house arrest. The rumors went viral on social media.[42] Xi made a public appearance on September 27, after a brief absence since mid-September.[43]
Censorship
In January 2008, the Chinese embassy in the United States discouraged viewers from watching or attending NTD's Chinese New Year galas and accused NTD of spreading "anti-China propaganda" and "distorting Chinese culture".[44]
In June 2008, the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) accused Eutelsat, a European satellite operator, of closing down transmissions of NTD to Asia through its W5 satellite to appease the Chinese government,[45] and appealed to Eutelsat CEO Giuliano Berretta to resume the broadcasts. RSF said it possessed a recording of a Beijing employee of Eutelsat revealing a "premeditated, politically motivated decision".[45] Eutelsat responded that the shutdown resulted solely from a technical failure of its W5 satellite, denied the validity[verification needed] of the conversation alleged by RSF, and said that it still broadcast NTD to Europe.[46][47] The International Federation of Journalists said Eutelsat was capable of resuming NTD transmissions to Asia, and it and members of the European Parliament[verification needed] called on Eutelsat to do so.[48][46]
On July 25, 2012, NTD Television officially launched NTD Canada, a local Canadian channel for Chinese viewers in Canada.[51] NTD Canada is a multilingual service airing programming in Cantonese, Mandarin, English and French, to reach out to second- and third-generation Chinese-Canadians who may not speak Chinese as well as they do English or French.
In June 2010, the Canadian Prime Minister's Office canceled a press conference that NTD and The Epoch Times would have attended so that General Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyHu Jintao would not come into contact with the broadcaster, allegedly following terms from the Chinese consulate. According to the Toronto Star, such press conferences are usually a standard procedure for foreign leaders visiting the Parliament, and the cancellation was seen as an extraordinary measure to keep NTD away from the Chinese leader.[52]
^ abLawrence, Susan V. (April 14, 2004). "Falun Gong Fields Media Weapons". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. Archived from the original on January 5, 2018. Retrieved March 25, 2018.
^ abCallery, James; Goddard, Jacqui (August 23, 2021). "Most-clicked link on Facebook spread doubt about Covid vaccine". The Times. ISSN0140-0460. Archived from the original on September 29, 2022. Retrieved December 22, 2021. Facebook's data on the first quarter of this year shows that one of its most popular pages was an article by The Epoch Times, a far-right newspaper that has promoted QAnon conspiracy theories and misleading claims of voter fraud related to the 2020 US election.
^ abWaldman, Scott (August 27, 2021). "Climate denial newspaper flourishes on Facebook". E&E News. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved January 8, 2022. The Epoch Times, a far-right newspaper that echoes anti-vaccine messages and promoted former President Trump's false election claims, received 44.2 million views between April and June for a page that offers to sign up subscribers, according to a report released by Facebook last week.
^"The battle in miniature". The Economist. October 10, 2020. ISSN0013-0613. Archived from the original on October 8, 2020. Retrieved June 20, 2022. she got her news from the far-right One America News Network and Epoch Times, a pro-Trump newspaper produced by the Falun Gong sect that has spread the anti-Semitic QAnon conspiracy.
