Missed Invitation Costs News Corp Dear

BEIJING --- When SARFT announced its list of the foreign satellite channels licensed to be broadcast in China from March 2007 (See Policy), News Corp invested ESPN and Star Sports had been dropped from the package.

SARFT had already announced there would be no further channel additions in the 'near future', leaving Disney and others out in the cold. The only new addition to SARFT's diplomatically balanced range of channels was Cubavision, a shining example of reciprocal cooperation.

From the SARFT perspective, News Corp is one of the most troublesome of the foreign media companies in the country, but it was surprising that these generally un-controversial channels on the foreign channel package are suddenly facing non-renewal of their China landing rights. After all, they make real money for package operator CITVC and its agents.

When something unexpected like this happens, it usually emerges a few months later that it was sparked by a specific incident, a certain action or even a comment that upset the wrong people. But what did News Corp do to incur the wrath of SARFT this time? Was Murdoch claiming to have cracked the China market again? Were they attempting backdoor acquisition of state channels, or selling perhaps illegally selling decoders again?
Industry rumors would seem to indicate that ESPN's woes may possibly well have more to do with what News Corp didn't do ( See Policy).

With a month until the new contract comes into effect and the channels' signals are cut, there is now a flurry of diplomatic exchanges and quite a bit of kowtowing. News Corp will hope that this short period of PR penitence will be followed by a steady rehabilitation process.

However, since the channels are not included on the official list, it has to be 50/50 as to whether SARFT will make ESPN/Star Sports wait a full year to rejoin and that would be a painful experience with the Olympics coming up.

But apart from handing SARFT an easy way to make a point about who is in charge, ESPN's cloud also has a silver lining for one other player. It is smiling faces over at Eurosport, set to become the only foreign sports channel in China.