SMG to Team Up with Media Giants

Updated:2006/11/29 11:08

Shanghai Media Group (SMG), the leading media company in Shanghai, will team up with six global media groups in operating IPTV business.

SMG hopes to attract more IPTV (Internet protocol television) viewers with much richer programs. The six media groups, dominating Hollywood now, are striving to seek a larger share in the populous Chinese market.

A source from SMG told journalists that BestTV, an IPTV subsidiary of SMG, has basically ended the talks with Sony/Columbia, 20th Century Fox, Disney/Buena Vista, Warner Bros., Paramount and Universal.

BestTV''s clients are expected to get access to these media giants'' movie databases at the first quarter of next year at latest, the source disclosed. "Domestic IPTV users can even see the latest movies only one month or so after the movies debut in US studios."

The media giants will be paid for movies'' copyrights. They will also have additional earnings, which depends on how frequently their movies are chosen by IPTV users. "Right now both sides are further discussing upon the details," said Xu Yue, a program planning head with BestTV.

"SMG is hungering for richer content in its IPTV operation and media giants eye on huge profitable scope in the Chinese market, that''s why the two sides join hands," industry experts analyzed.

"In fact, the cooperation with Hollywood heavyweights is just part of our efforts to establish a content platform," Xu Yue stressed. Now the company is contacting with movie suppliers in India and Europe.

Meanwhile, it is furthering greatly the cooperation with overseas partners like Hong Kong-based Phoenix, China Entertainment Television Broadcast Limited under Tom Group, STAR Group and ESPN. It is also allying with some Internet firms such as Sohu.com for more IPTV content supply.

SMG has established a relationship with domestic telecom carriers. Today, it is operating IPTV business in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, northeastern China, by partnering China Netcom (CNC), the second largest fixed line telephone carrier in China''s mainland.

Currently the IPTV users in Harbin have hit 70,000 households and is expected to increase to 100,000 ones at the end of this year, disclosed a CNC executive.

It has hooked up with Shanghai Telecom, the Shanghai branch of the nation''s biggest fixed-line telecom operator China Telecom, to deploy the RollingStream end-to-end IPTV in Shanghai, the industrial and entertainment hub in eastern China.

The two partners are aimed to increase the number of Internet TV users in the city to between 80,000 and 100,000 by the end of this year.

SMG owns 11 television channels and 10 radio stations by now. Its member media organizations include: Radio Shanghai, Eastern Radio Shanghai, Shanghai Television Station (STV), Shanghai Oriental Television Station (OTV), Orient Network Ltd., Weekly Broadcasting and TV Newspaper Office.

Now the company has grown into a media empire in China. After it gained the licenses for IPTV and mobile phone business from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, it has begun to carry out is IPTV strategy in a low-profile way.

In China, the IPTV subscribers reached 300,000 in 2005, a sharp increase from the 50,000 of the previous year but still only a slight portion in the nation''s total TV user base of 300 million.

The IPTV market, however, will not develop rapidly until 2008, the researchers said.

(source: sinocast)