Although it was the weekend, many businesses found themselves busy this past Sunday for World Consumer Rights Day.

As a tradition that goes back more than 20 years, China Central Television (CCTV) broadcast a special "gala" Sunday to expose questionable business practices that appear to violate consumer rights.

Over the past few years, the program has targeted some big companies such as China Telecom, the State-owned telecommunications giant; Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd, one of the largest electronics retailers in China; Apple Inc, the American consumer electronics maker; and Mead Johnson Nutrition Company, a major manufacturer of baby formula.

As the live broadcast consistently grabs the public's attention and triggers hot discussions on social networking websites, it is believed that companies featured on the annual broadcast suffer significant damage to their reputations.

A quick response to the program is considered essential to resolving the issue. That's why many people have described the night of March 15, when the program aired, as a test in crisis management for companies' public relations departments.

This year, apparently, the program has shifted to targeting automobile companies, exposing problems with maintenance and repair services at the dealerships of many big names like Nissan, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.

A CCTV investigative report showed reporters visiting the dealerships of the three brands in Beijing, Shanghai, Henan Province and four other locations. The reporters found the dealerships exaggerated problems with vehicles, allowing them to generate big profits off unnecessary maintenance and repair services.

Just a few hours after the broadcast, Volkswagen issued a response stating that it had started its own investigation into the matter. The company apologized to its customers and vowed to strengthen supervision over maintenance service at its dealerships.

It is encouraging to see a company treat service problems with such a serious attitude. Hopefully, it will protect the interests of car owners for the time being. However, such violations of consumer rights don't happen only around March 15. One time a year is far from enough to expose all of the problems with goods and services that consumers regularly have to deal with.

More needs to be done to protect consumer rights. Of course, that's not the mission of a television station. It's a task for the government agencies in charge of supervising different industries.

They need to make daily supervision over businesses a priority. In the meantime, they should work to ensure an accessible reporting channel that allows consumers to make complaints in a variety of ways, such as by phone, e-mail, text message, or by visiting a complaint office in person.

The supervisory bodies should take these complaints seriously and severely punish the businesses at fault. A media platform, like a television or radio program or a newspaper report, is what the supervision authorities could turn to in the face of stubborn businesses that refuse to correct bad business practices.

Of course, to ensure that consumers make valid complaints, it is essential that the government details clear legal definitions for business practices that violate consumer rights. After that, these laws and policies should be publicized to the general public.

Last but not least, if businesses within a certain industry are found to be frequently violating the rights of consumers, it is also crucial that government regulators be held accountable for repeatedly failing to prevent inappropriate or illegal business practices. It's a dereliction of duty for them as well.