AOL yesterday began broadcasting news programs supplied by Shanghai Media Group's broadband unit.

Shanghai Media Group Broadband (SMGBB) will provide Chinese content mainly news, finance, entertainment and sports via AOL.com to viewers worldwide.

AOL, the Internet unit of Time Warner Inc, provides the online platform, and MediaZone, a worldwide provider of online television programing and a China partner of AOL, and Shanghai Media Group will do the daily maintenance.

The programs are available at http://www.aol.com/chinese, which provides up to 20 hours of video content including news, movies, and TV dramas.

It is reportedly the first time that a Chinese mainland media group is offering content to an established American website.

Zhang Dazhong, Shanghai Media Group's deputy general manager, said: "Through the partnership, we can provide the latest and accurate news to Chinese-language users."

It was not disclosed how much AOL will pay the Shanghai firm for the content.

Michelle Wu, MediaZone's chief operating officer, said: "Thanks to SMG, we are able to expand our service in Chinese via AOL.com with over 200 minutes of daily video news, especially offered to Chinese-speaking communities in the United States."

MediaZone's ChinaPortal.com helped AOL to launch its Chinese-language website in February.

Norman Koo, AOL web strategy executive, said: "By creating this free, language-specific portal, we can better serve the millions of people in the United States who want access to critical features and communications tools, especially the latest news and entertainment video, in Chinese."

Shanghai Media Group was formed from the merger of the city's radio and television stations in 2001 and ranks as one of the country's biggest media and entertainment conglomerates. It has cooperation agreements with major international media groups including Viacom, Vivendi Universal and Discovery Channel.

SMGBB is the only company on the Chinese mainland licensed to provide Internet Protocol Television, or IPTV, services.

(China Daily April 18, 2006)