media - CCTV monitors its own audiences

I mostly take a walk when propaganda from Xinhua passes my desk, but I was too late for this one. In it the chairman of Nielsen Media Research (NMR) Robert L. McCann tells that China will replace Japan as the number two in world-wide advertisements spending.

"It is a question of when, not if."

Wow. Stop the presses.
The funny part come later in the dispatch, where McCann says he wants to lift monitoring of the TV audiences to an international level.

But he also expressed concern over the transparency and independence of CTR, a competitor that is part-owned by China Central Television (CCTV). "Competition is fine," he said. "Clients want us. We focus on our clients."

I looked it up: CTR is actually owned in majority by the CCTV, de largest - state-owned - TV-broadcaster in China. My friends at the Shanghai Media Group, the second-largest state-owned TV-station say they buy both the reports of Nielsen and CTR; there is not a huge difference between the two, they say.
But it still does not feel good, in a country where there is huge doubts concerning the validity of the claims of different media. I agree with McCann: auditing should not be done by yourself.