Howard French, Shanghai correspondent of The New York Times reports from Ndjamena, in Chad:

When I last visited this country, in the late 1990's, watching CNN at a French-run hotel here, or for that matter in many former French colonies in the region, meant carrying a screwdriver and readjusting the television's tuner to have some choices beyond French-language fare ...

... CNN was regarded in Africa by the possessive French as an arm of an encroaching American empire to be held at bay.

Imagine my surprise then, arriving in Ndjamena late at night on a visit from China, when I turned on my television at the French-run Sofitel Hotel to find that the program blaring from Channel 1 was a starchy variety show in Chinese, courtesy of that country's state broadcaster CCTV.

Your correspondent tends to be a cheerleader for Chinese involvement in Africa, but the thought of CCTV variety shows penetrating even such remote countries as Chad is rather unnerving.

The whole article examines waning French influence and rising Chinese involvement in Africa: Tattered French African empire looks toward China.