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culture Mass media The Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China guarantees citizens freedom of speech and information. With the economic development that started in the 1980s, Chinese media have become more diversified as they extend their reach throughout China through multiple transmission, including satellites, wireless and wired systems. Today, there are over 2,000 newspapers, over 8,000 magazines, 282 radio stations and 374 TV stations in China. By the end of 2004, there were 774 medium- and short-wave radio transmitting and relay stations, and 114.7 million households with access to cable television, covering 94.1 and 95.3 percent of the population, respectively. News Agencies Headquartered in Beijing, Xinhua News Agency is Chinas official news agency, as well as one of the worlds major international news agencies with more than 100 branches in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and other regions. In 2003, its subordinate Xinhua Financial Network Ltd. formed an international alliance with Agence France-Presse (AFP) Finance. Xinhua Financial Network Ltd. purchased the news agencies of AFP Asian Finance in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore and eight other Asian countries and regions, which expanded the coverage of Xinhua News Agencys international network. With its head office also in Beijing, China News Service mainly supplies news to overseas Chinese, foreign citizens of Chinese origin, and compatriots in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Special Administrative Region, and Taiwan. Newspapers Between 1950 and 2000, the number of Chinese newspapers increased nearly ten-fold. In 2004, over 400 kinds of daily newspapers were published in China, their circulation reaching 80 million, the highest figure of any country in the world. Targeted at different reader groups, newspaper formats are becoming increasingly diverse and colorful. Recent years have seen an important trend of newspaper reorganization. To date,