Teletubbies Touch Down in China
10.15am: The Teletubbies is set to be the first foreign show on regular prime-time TV in China, reaching up to 600m people, reports Jessica Hodgson.
The Teletubbies are set to make their debut in China, following a deal between the BBC and the Chinese state monopoly TV station, CCTV.
The programme, which translates roughly into Mandarin Chinese as Tianxian Baobao or "Antenna Babies", will air across China from March giving pre-school stars their widest audience yet.
And they are bound to displace Bei-ke-ha-mu - David Beckham as Britain's best known export to China.
According to the TV station, the arrival of Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po (or Dingding, Dixi, Lala and Po as they will be known) not an easy process.
The Teletubbies will be the first foreign production to be shown regularly on prime-time TV in China, reaching up to 600m people.
Attempts to translate pre-school telebabble as "tintle pimple ipultar, how bye dunder wot top tar" into Mandarin didn't work.
"We did as much as we could to keep it faithful to the English original.
"Whenever the BBC felt actors who dubbed the programmes did not match the original sound, we changed them for other actors," Yao Zuozhou, an official at CCTV tells today's Financial Times.
The deal is a spectacular coup for the BBC and heralds a sea change in the attitude of the Chinese government to imported western programming.
It is likely to irritate BSkyB owner Rupert Murdoch, however, after the Chinese government blocked his recent deal to broadcast a 24-hour entertainment channel in Guangdon province, by insisting that China Netcom, the company in which he holds a 12% stake, be split in two.
The programme, which translates roughly into Mandarin Chinese as Tianxian Baobao or "Antenna Babies", will air across China from March giving pre-school stars their widest audience yet.
And they are bound to displace Bei-ke-ha-mu - David Beckham as Britain's best known export to China.
According to the TV station, the arrival of Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po (or Dingding, Dixi, Lala and Po as they will be known) not an easy process.
The Teletubbies will be the first foreign production to be shown regularly on prime-time TV in China, reaching up to 600m people.
Attempts to translate pre-school telebabble as "tintle pimple ipultar, how bye dunder wot top tar" into Mandarin didn't work.
"We did as much as we could to keep it faithful to the English original.
"Whenever the BBC felt actors who dubbed the programmes did not match the original sound, we changed them for other actors," Yao Zuozhou, an official at CCTV tells today's Financial Times.
The deal is a spectacular coup for the BBC and heralds a sea change in the attitude of the Chinese government to imported western programming.
It is likely to irritate BSkyB owner Rupert Murdoch, however, after the Chinese government blocked his recent deal to broadcast a 24-hour entertainment channel in Guangdon province, by insisting that China Netcom, the company in which he holds a 12% stake, be split in two.
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