China’s State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) has issued two new “black lists” — one of eight Internet audio-video companies ordered to shut down, and another listing 20 companies given warnings over objectionable content. Embarrassingly, I must confess that I was made aware of this only after a Hong Kong-based journalist called me to comment on this. (Thanks, Anita!) I would venture to guess that none of the names on either list are familiar to most observers of the Chinese Internet: none of them are remotely in the big league, except perhaps the BBS of link list site Tomatolei.com, which was on the warning list, and which I wasn’t even aware offered anything video-related.

This doesn’t mean that everyone’s entirely out of the woods. There’s still no official word as to when and to whom licenses for Internet audio-video will be issued.