Chinese Entrepreneurs Buy Overseas TV Channels
Chinese entrepreneurs have seized the opportunities presented by the global financial crisis to purchase two overseas TV stations - one in Los Angeles, one in Great Britain - in two separate deals over the last two weeks. While the deals appear unrelated, the businessmen involved say they plan to broadcast Chinese language programming promoting Chinese culture in the US and Europe.
The most recently announced deal saw two mainland media companies - Songlian International Media and Tianxing Media - team up to purchase Los Angeles-based satellite TV station Sky Link TV on July 15. The station was founded in 2001 with capital from Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China and the US, with the aim of serving the Chinese speaking diaspora in America.
Wang Guang, deputy CEO of Tianxing Media, has declined to disclose how much the station cost but he said it was not very expensive because the global financial crisis had left it in a difficult financial position.
The Sky Link deal comes hot on the heels of news that another Chinese businessman, Ye Maoxing, bought a British satellite TV station called Propeller TV in June and plans to use the channel as a platform to air shows promoting China across Europe.
Propeller TV was launched on British Sky Broadcasting's satellite TV platform in 2006 as a non-for-profit channel with a public-funded investment of 5.2 million pounds. Ye Maoxing, president of the Xiking Group, discovered the station was looking for investors when he visited Britain as a member of an official trade delegation accompanying Premier Wen Jiabao at the start of the year. He signed an agreement of intent over the acquisition during the visit and the deal was completed in June, after six months of negotiations.
While the media have reported extensively on the Chinese government's plans to boost its soft power by promoting its cultural products overseas, these deals represent relatively high profile international media acquisitions by private entrepreneurs. Judging by the media reports, the businessmen involved clearly want us to believe they see an opportunity to serve the media market created by the growing international interest in China, as well as the growing number of mainland Chinese living overseas.
Yan Maoxing has already announced his plans to revamp Propeller TV into a station focusing on Chinese programming.
"The station will broadcast more Chinese content to introduce our culture, history, economic development and brands to European people," said Yao Maoxing. "It will also encourage Europeans to learn the Chinese language."
Wang Guang, deputy CEO of Tianxing Media, has unveiled even more ambitious plans to revamp Sky Link TV into a global Chinese language TV brand to rival the Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV. The station currently broadcasts 24 hour programming in Mandarin, Cantonese and Taiwanese dialects to more than 100 cities across the US via cable and satellite networks, as well as an IPTV platform.
The new partners will launch a new program line up on September 1, with greater emphasis on popular TV series and variety shows from mainland China. Then they will expand Sky Link's coverage to include New York and Toronto, plus major cities in Europe and other regions, within the next 3 years. Altogether, they plan to invest around US$10 million every year to run the station.
Asked to comment on the deals, high profile TV director You Xiaogang told Beijing Business Report, "It is not very difficult to buy a foreign TV station right now but it will take a lot of work to run it well."
Indeed, the unlikelihood that two failing satellite channels can be turned around by introducing Chinese content betrays the political imperative that remains central to all such "private sector" deals involving Chinese companies. Given the massive domestic business opportunities for those who can curry favor with the Chinese Communist Party, buying small TV stations in the USA and Europe to help Chinese culture "reach for the world", may be considered a very small price to pay.