China Media Monitor Headlines Archives

65 million Chinese households will be able to receive digital cable TV by the end of 2009, according to Li Dan, chairman of the China Radio and TV Society. China aims to complete the digital transformation of all cable TV households by 2015 but this will be difficult to accomplish due to the current pace of the conversion work, reports Beijing Business Week.

Stellar Mega Films, a leading Chinese production and distribution company, has been forced to sell 80% of its shares by public auction in order to repay a debt, reports Economic Observer. The order came from the Guangdong Conghua City People’s Court, which sentenced the company to repay the debt and commissioned three auction companies to launch the bidding process on December 17. The court did not disclose any details of the debt in question.

Stellar Mega Media was founded in 2001 and owns Stellar Mega Films, which has focused on film and TV drama production as well as cinema construction and operation. Undoubtedly an 80% share loss of its film subsidiary will impact the entire group. Stellar Mega Film’s productions and co-productions include Perhaps Love (Ru Guo Ai) and The Warlords (Tau Ming Zhuang).

China Film Group (CFG) tendered the sale of 49% of its shares in two cinemas in Chongqing and Changsha for RMB20.09 million (US$2.94 million) on December 3, reports Shanghai Securities Daily. The average annual profits of both cinemas are between RMB1 million (US$146,413) to RMB2 million (US$292,825).

An industry source believes CFG is looking for partners to realize its plans for large scale cinema construction and operation. CFG has stipulated that any potential buyers will need to purchase shares in both cinemas. They also need to posses RMB80 million (US$11.71 million) in registered capital and at least three years' experience operating cinemas.

Online video site PPLive.com has renewed its agreement to establish a long term strategic cooperative partnership with Shanghai Media Group (SMG), reports Sohu. It will provode live webcasts and video-on-demand services for more SMG programs under the deal. According to estimates, PPLive currently has around 175 million users.

Xunlei, a popular download manager and BitTorrent client, is not worried it will be shut down by the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT), according to the Chief Operating Officer Luo Weimin. He said SARFT's current campaign to shut down all unlicensed online video sites will not affect Xunlei because the site does not host any actual content. Rather, Xunlei only provides software for users. He said he expected more Internet users to turn to Xunlei in the near future, thanks to the recent closures of other BitTorrent sites.