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News Corp. subsidiary Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings has set up a joint venture to sell advertising and programming to broadcasters on the Chinese mainland.
The deal, with the Guangdong Television Broadcasting Development Center, will allow Phoenix to collect advertising revenue from the mainland, said Roger Uren, vice president for international affairs at Phoenix.
The broadcast center is a unit of China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, in southern China's Guang-dong Province.
Financial details regarding the joint venture, to be called Guangdong International Media, were not announced.
Broadcasts of Phoenix, which is 37.6 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. television subsidiary STAR, have been available in Guangdong since 1996.
Chinese authorities recently granted formal approval for broadcasts of Phoenix's 24-hour Chinese-language news channel, Phoenix InfoNews
Without official approval for the broadcasts, Phoenix and the other foreign networks had been unable to collect advertising revenue, as local operators run their own ads during the Phoenix shows and keep revenue.
Industry executives have estimated that China's television advertising market could be worth more than US$2 billion.
(eastday.com January 31, 2003)
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