Not welcome in the Year of the Mouse

The Shanghai Daily reports:

All foreign cartoons, including puppet shows, will be banned between 5pm and 9pm, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said in a notice on its Website yesterday. It extended a 2006 order that had banned cartoons from 5 pm to 8 pm...

...Cartoon programs co-produced by domestic and foreign companies will need the administration's approval to be shown during the affected hours.

The ratio for Chinese-made cartoons versus foreign cartoons should be no less than 7:3, the notice added...

...It also required TV stations to allocate more money to their cartoon channels, especially satellite cartoon channels, so they could broadcast more domestic animated programs.

Last year, 101,900 minutes of cartoon programs were made in China, about 23 percent more than that of 2006, according to the notice.

The further restrictions on the broadcast of foreign cartoons, intended to foster the domestic cartoon industry, come a week after SARFT issued restrictions on horror movies. The horror movie rules are intended to protect the mental health of children.

Xinhua (via the China Daily website) notes with relief that the ban on horror films does not include "films such as the Harry Potter series" and "Hollywood blockbusters like 'Shrek', 'Toy story', 'Gremlins' and 'E.T.'", because their content is apparently "healthy".