NEW YORK TIMESWestern TV May Be Nearer for Chinese
AOL Time Warner and the News Corporation said they have
moved closer to receiving permission to broadcast their
television programs in China.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/05/business/worldbusiness/05CHIN.html?todaysh
eadlines

SEP 05, 2001

Western TV May Be Nearer for Chinese

By GERALDINE FABRIKANT with CRAIG S. SMITH

After a series of meetings with top-level Chinese officials, AOL Time Warner
(news/quote)
    and the News Corporation (news/quote) said yesterday that they had moved
closer to a
long-sought goal of receiving permission from the Chinese government to
broadcast their
television programs in China.

An AOL Time Warner executive, Edward Adler, said that his company and the
News
Corporation had held "positive and constructive discussions as recently as
last week" with
Chinese officials to try to overcome their reluctance to formally sanction
broadcasts by foreign
companies.

Star TV, which is owned by the News Corporation, is already seen by many
Chinese viewers
who have illegal satellite dishes. And the Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite
Television, in
which Star TV holds a stake, is already allowed to broadcast over cable
television systems in
the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong province, north of Hong Kong.
Over-the-air
broadcasts from Hong Kong are readily available there, too.

AOL Time Warner has a stake in China Entertainment Television, a satellite
TV station based in
Hong Kong, which itself broadcasts over cable systems in a smaller area of
Guangdong. That
channel carries entertainment programs in Mandarin. The company's goal, if
the current talks are
fruitful, is to expand the channel's reach in the province.

China is considering giving similar limited rights to AOL and the News
Corporation, which
would allow them to reach millions of cable subscribers in Guangdong.
Phoenix Satellite
Television, for example, reaches about eight million subscribers in the
province.

In exchange for their approval, Beijing officials want assurances that a
Chinese- run channel
carrying government-approved English-language news broadcasts, as well as
Chinese cooking
programs and Mandarin-language classes, will be available to viewers in the
United States.

In an interview that appeared last night on the Web site of The Financial
Times, Xu Guangchun,
the Chinese minister for radio, film and television, said that "broadcasting
in a restricted area in
Guangdong province would be fine." Mr. Xu could not be reached for comment
late yesterday.

Several people close to the discussions said that the recent round of talks
represented a
breakthrough because of China's new willingness to invite more programming
by foreign
companies. Although this discussion is focused only on Guangdong, in the
south, American
media companies have long sought to reach China's 1.25 billion people,
recognizing the potential
of one day delivering such a vast audience to advertisers.

No deals have yet been signed, both sides confirmed, and one person close to
the talks said that
any deal was at least a month away.

AOL Time Warner could most easily satisfy China's hunger for access to
American viewers by
carrying a Chinese channel on its existing cable systems, which reach about
11 million
subscribers in the United States.

While the News Corporation owns television stations, as well as cable
channels like FX, it
would most likely distribute a Chinese channel by satellite.

The News Corporation is trying to buy Hughes Electronics, which owns the
DirecTV satellite
service, from General Motors (news/quote). But it is battling a rival bid
from EchoStar
Communications (news/quote) and has yet to secure an acquisition.

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the News Corporation, has waged a long
battle to enter the
Chinese market. After alienating the Beijing government in 1993 with his
characterization of
satellite TV as a force against totalitarianism, he and his family worked
assiduously to mollify the
Chinese. Most notably, he removed BBC news programs from his Star TV service
because it
had produced a series of tough critical documentaries on Chinese politics.

Next month, the News Corporation is organizing a media conference in
Shanghai senior
government officials and Chinese and foreign media figures.

If the current talks are successful, Mr. Murdoch's company hopes to start a
second channel, a
spokesman indicated.

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