I rarely watch TV in China.

I searched through Yahoo-gle about 'new Gov. regulations on accessing Western TV programs in China'. There are few web links with latest date Feb 12, 2014.

1. China Limits Foreign TV Programs - The New York...http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/world/asia/aiming-at-asian-competitors-china-limits-foreign-television.html
   

   Feb 14, 2012 ... A new set of regulations seek to restrict comedies, dramas and movies from ... what Chinese viewers can watch on television, the governmentagency that ... Western programming is almost nonexistent on Chinese television.

    

   1. American TV Shows to be Hit by New Chinese...http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/stories/new-policy-wrecks-net-tv-sites-slow-down-on-buying-shows.html
      

      Mar 26, 2014 ... American TV Shows May Be Hit Hard By New Internet TV Show Policy, Websites ... Radio Film and Television (SARFT) announced released new regulations aimed .... As for the Chinese industry and government, they should start expanding ... And 'western' people don't give a shit about Chinese dramas?

       

      It doesn't load on my BB, but it looks some block on accessing Western channels in China was made last year.

I have satellite TV. I only pay for 2-3 months a t a time, because I have/had the intention of moving to internet TV, because it was much cheaper.

Just a month or so ago, my satellite TV provider (who I like and trust) advised me that they would no longer be selling or supplying internet TV boxes because they were worried that the government was about to make some changes and make make it more difficult for them and so obviously me and any other clients.

No idea about any details, but if they are worried about satisfying customers with them boxes, I trust them.

I have heard of Chinese censorship increasing... so I wouldn't doubt it. 

I am glad I left China, all that censorship is just ridiculous and annoying. Chinese will continue to act like children because the government babies them far too much. Chinese need to see how the world works and experience other cultures but Big Brother is too fearful. 

my IPTV box also have the same problem. I cant get any channels anymore. So im stuck with youku, sohu or whatever the pc redirects me to watch a movie or a series.

Same here, I use a TV box too, similar problems. 

Starting about a month ago I noticed the latest western movies and TV series were pretty much all gone. Before, they were very much up-to-date, almost in sync with those running in the West. The rest, chinese TV programs, movies.....are all intact. Just those latest foreign movies and TV series are gone (the old ones are still here).

Take for example, Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, I watched the "rush version" (that's what they were called on that apk software (dozens of them, the best one I found was TV cat which you can download using the TV box, from the internet, all legit) within the same week it was released in US. Same with Jurassic Park during the summer, no problem at all. Now, the Martian is nowhere to be found. The latest TV series are all gone, no Agent X, Supergirl (hey, I like her better than Superman!), S.h.i.e.l.d, Blindspot, Blacklist....etc. 

My first reaction was, maybe this have to do with copyrights? We all know how respectful Chinese are with copyrights......

The other possibility is tightening of censorship which is more likely. It would take a couple more centuries for the Chinese to learn to respect copyrights, or anything except money for that matter.

I thank all for your answers, now I know it is nationwide.  My flat screen TV; home theater system; TV box have become ornamental items now.

And this is why China (Hangzhou) gets the G20 next year...!!!

Oh, and the Olympics... and the Winter Olympics.....

Source : The Wall Street Journal. Nov. 16, 2015. Not sure if you need a VPN to read it so here it is. http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-to-tighten-limit-on-foreign-tv-and-video-imports-1447672849  

BEIJING—China is clamping down on DVD imports that Chinese Internet companies use to circumvent government controls on showing foreign movies and television shows online, according to people familiar with the move.

The new rules, which Chinese officials are expected to detail to Internet companies in about a month, mark the latest effort by China to tighten its grip on what its people watch as online video streaming sites surge in popularity.

While Beijing limits Chinese video-streaming sites to ensuring that no more than 30% of their content emanates from overseas, Internet companies have used a backdoor that gives them the right to stream extra foreign shows online that aren’t counted in the quota, the people said. When a distributor gets a government license to physically import a TV show or movie, usually in the form of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, it is also permitted to post the content online, the people said.

Soon, China’s top media regulator will cut the number of import licenses for physical media like DVDs—currently more than 1,000 titles each year—and will require that importers state whether the physical media being imported is also going to be posted online, the people familiar with the new rules say. It isn’t clear if this content will be counted as part of the quota.

The new policy—expected to be released next month and take effect in January—is the latest step by the nation’s rulers to control what people are able to watch, and limit overseas influence. Western shows such as “The Big Bang Theory” and “Game of Thrones” have surged in popularity among Chinese viewers along with explosive growth in online video sites.

Legal DVD sales are practically nonexistent in China, where major movies and shows are widely available through illegal downloading services and bootleg disks, as well as a newer generation of video websites that offer legal content..........

China beats Iran & Syria, Won No. 1 for Internet Freedom in 2015 !!!  

(Counting backwards ie.....)

Here is the article if you don't have a VPN to read this "wonderful" piece of news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/world/asia/freedom-house-report-china-internet-freedom.html?action=click&contentCollection=International%20Business&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article&_r=0

BEIJING — China ranks last in the world for openness among countries studied in a new report on Internet freedom by a prominent American pro-democracy group.

The report, “Freedom on the Net 2015,” the latest such annual study by the group, Freedom House, lists the many ways in which China is restricting free access to the Internet, from strengthening its Great Firewall system of website censorship to criminalizing some kinds of Internet speech. China had the worst score of 65 nations, behind Iran, Cuba and Myanmar. (North Korea was not included in the report.)

“The aim of establishing control was particularly evident in the government’s attitude toward foreign Internet companies, its undermining of digital security protocols, and its ongoing erosion of user rights, including through extralegal detentions and the imposition of prison sentences for online speech,” says the report released this week. “China was the world’s worst abuser of Internet freedom in the 2015 Freedom on the Net survey.”

Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported Wednesday that, through a new criminal law, Chinese officials will be able to impose a prison sentence of up to seven years on a person convicted of creating and spreading “false information” online. The law is the latest in an array of legal regulations that Chinese officials have used in recent years to silence political dissent and quash the spread of information and rumors.

The new law, which will take effect Sunday, significantly increases the punishment for those judged to be spreading rumors or politically delicate information. The earlier punishment under a similar measure was an administrative one and not a criminal one, Xinhua reported. Under the earlier administrative law, a person convicted of the charge of spreading rumors online could be placed under detention for five to 10 days and fined as much as 500 renminbi, or about $80.

The new law says people who “fabricate false information about hazards, diseases, disasters or crimes and spread it on information networks or other media, or deliberately spread it on information networks or other media while knowing it is false information, seriously disrupting social orders, will be sentenced to a prison term up to three years, placed under detention or face enforcement measures.”

“In cases where serious consequences are caused, one will be sentenced to a prison term ranging from three to seven years,” the new law says.

Since 2013, Chinese officials have often used another criminal charge, “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” to jail a wide range of people for online speech, including artists, essayists and liberal lawyers. The best-known case is that of Pu Zhiqiang, a civil rights defense lawyer who was detained last year. He was charged by prosecutors in May with inciting ethnic hatred and picking quarrels and provoking trouble, for which he faces up to eight years in prison. His lawyers said the prosecutors had built their case on 28 microblog posts he had written, some of which criticized China’s policies toward the Uighurs, an ethnic minority.

The “picking quarrels” charge has been used as a harsh tool in a widespread official “antirumor campaign” whose aim is to silence certain kinds of Internet speech.

This summer, China released a draft law on cybersecurity that, if passed, would further formalize broad powers that the government already wields in clamping down on Internet activity. That includes shutting down the wider Internet in large regions, as the government did in 2009 during rioting involving ethnic Uighurs in the capital of the Xinjiang region. For a year, the government allowed access to only a few official websites across all of Xinjiang, which is one-sixth of the territory of China.

“The cybersecurity law is still under discussion now,” said Zhan Jiang, a media studies professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. “It indicates that more regulations will be placed on the Internet out of security concerns.”

China now emphasizes the importance of “cyberspace sovereignty.” The official in charge of the Cyberspace Administration of China, Lu Wei, has stressed that idea in recent meetings with executives of foreign Internet and media companies that want greater access to the Chinese market. Some of the most popular American-run websites are blocked in China, including Google, Facebook and Twitter. (The New York Times has been blocked since 2012.)

China has been steadily falling in the annual Freedom House report in recent years. Last year, it ranked third from the bottom among 65 nations, ahead of Iran and Syria. This year’s report says that “over the past year, the renewed emphasis on information control led to acts of unconcealed aggression against Internet freedom.”