Three leading Chinese dot-com firms have won the right to broadcast events of the 2008 Olympic Games, competing with Sohu.com, a sponsor and original holder of the rights, it was announced in Beijing yesterday.

The announcement was another move in the heated battle in the Chinese Internet industry before the Games open next month.

The Olympics are bringing huge business opportunities and the potential for surging advertising income for online firms, industry insiders said.

Nasdaq-listed NetEase.com and Sina Corp as well as Hong Kong-listed Tencent (QQ) said they signed with CCTV.com to get the rights to video broadcast the Olympics and to offer video on demand services online.

PPLive.com also obtained the rights from CCTV to broadcast Beijing Olympics content through its Websites, the second online peer-to-peer video sharing platform after PPS' partnership with cctv.com, its operator Shanghai Synacast Media Tech Co announced yesterday.

PPLive, which has over 100 million registered users worldwide according to an AC Nielson survey, was ranked first of all Chinese P2P platforms for user scale and exclusiveness, iResearch said in its latest report.

CCTV will use eight channels to broadcast the Olympics with 3,800 hours of television from August 8 to 24, Wang Wenbin, general manager of CCTV.com, said.

The chief executives of the flagship firms, including NetEase's William Ding, Tencent's Ma Huateng and Sina's Charles Chao, declined to reveal financial details yesterday.

"The new media broadcasts of the Olympics, the first time in the history of the global event, will allow even more people access to the event," Wang said.

Along with Sohu, almost all top Chinese Websites have the rights to broadcast the Olympics.

"It's the first time the Internet has become the No. 1 distribution channel of the Olympics over CCTV (in China). For most advertisers, the Internet is the major battle field of Olympics promotions," DCCI said in a report released yesterday.

Advantages

Advantages of the Internet platform include immediacy and interactive content, according to the DCCI (Data Center of the China Internet), an Internet market monitor and data analysis platform.

By the end of the first half of the year, China's online population reached 221 million and is expected to hit 263 million by the end of this year.

In the first six months, Chinese netizens spent 256.7 billion yuan (US$37.1 billion) on-line, a 58.2-percent growth year-on-year, and the whole-year figure will surpass 587.4 billion yuan, according to DCCI.

The major online players in the Chinese dot-com industry will benefit from the Olympics.

Sina.com and Sohu.com, the country's top Internet portals, have generated strong advertising?sales with a quarterly growth rate from 18 to 30 percent above previous quarters.

(Shanghai Daily July 16, 2008)