D’oh! China has banished The Simpsons, Pokemon and Mickey Mouse from prime time. Beginning Sept. 1, regulators have barred foreign cartoons from TV from 5 to 8 p.m. in an effort to protect China’s struggling animation studios, news reports said Sunday. The move allows the Monkey King and his Chinese pals to get the top TV viewing hours.
Foreign cartoons, especially from Japan, are hugely popular with China’s 250 million children and the country’s own animation studios have struggled to compete. Communist leaders are said to be frustrated that so many cartoons are foreign-made, especially after efforts to build up Chinese animation studios. The ban hasn’t been formally announced, but newspapers were criticizing it Sunday as the wrong way to improve programming.
SOURCE: Yahoo
They don’t care about copying products created by foreign companies but they’ll ban foreign stuff to protect their economy. We would not even have computers if all the countries in the world were like that.