THE SCRAMBLE FOR CHINA'S HEARTS AND MINDS "When the Beijing Olympic Games kicked off two weeks ago with a four-hour spectacular, more than 840 million people in China tuned in, perhaps the largest television audience in history for a single event. The broadcast was the first in a series of Olympic bonanzas for China Central Television, or CCTV, one of the chief propaganda arms of the Chinese state and perhaps also a new global media titan. … The company is … a model of how the Communist Party in China manages to keep state-owned companies profitable as it moves the nation toward a market economy with less government influence. That the biggest corporations in the world are bankrolling that evolution — as well as party propaganda — is one of the ironies of modern China. … Its advertisers include Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Adidas. It has cut television and marketing deals with the National Basketball Association and IMG Worldwide, the global sports and entertainment giant."