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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DiViT who wrote (42298)	6/20/1999 2:47:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

DTH in China............................. multi-international.com Chinese DTH Sets Expansion With MIH By OWEN HUGHES June 14, 1999 China's nascent direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV service appears set to increase its channel lineup fivefold by autumn, to 40, as it continues to bring TV signals to tens of millions of rural inhabitants for the first time. China Broadcasting Satellite TV (CBTV) debuted earlier this year as a venture organized by the State Administration for Radio, Film and TV (SARFT). It began as an effort to bring the eight China Central TV (CCTV) channels to the residents of 100,000 rural settlements -- as many as 200 million people -- who never had access to TV before, following a continuing trial run to 1,000 villages. After a fierce tendering process in late 1998, SAFRT awarded the contract to supply set-top decoders for CBTV to MIH Asia, a unit of South Africa-based MIH Ltd. Despite considerable skepticism of the project, Neville Meijers, chief executive officer of MIH China, said SARFT has ordered 20,000 additional decoders in order to expand the project to more villages. The signals are received by a satellite-master-antenna TV system. The system will expand to 40 channels in October, he added. The newcomers will consist of selected Chinese provincial and urban channels, and as well as weather and educational services. China prohibits the direct distribution of foreign-based channels, and MIH will not supply any programming. It is unclear when the full-blown commercial rollout of CBTV will begin, Meijers said. He added that China wanted to jump-start its own DTH platform because authorities were alarmed by programming, including pornography, beamed into China since mid-1998 by the Taiwanese-based DTH platform C-Sky-Net. The programming is received in China via illegal decoders. "The Chinese felt that if they did not have a DTH platform they would never be able to compete or fight them. So, rather than exclude the world, it decided to control its entry," Meijers said. He added that foreign firms hoping to distribute 24-hour channels into China through DTH will have to wait a few years, due to sensitivities about foreign programming. When MIH Asia was awarded the contract to supply CBTV, the losers in the tender privately criticized the company's winning bid. They speculated Chinese broadcasting authorities were under pressure from the country's Foreign Ministry, which wanted to build relations with South Africa after the country broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of Beijing. One Beijing-based observer is dismissive of MIH China's long-term involvement, suggesting that Chinese authorities might easily switch to another supplier after the trial ends. "The [SARFT] was the wrong horse to back in the long run, because it was a small body caught in the middle of powerful bodies, including the Ministry of Information Industries [MII] and the Ministry of Culture, each of which believes it has ultimate control over broadcasting policy," the executive, who asked not to be identified, said. The comment was refuted by a Singaporean media executive, who said he spoke to MII Minister Wu Jichuan in May. He said Wu was "largely leaving the regulation of CBTV to the SAFRTV. If you talk to him, he will let this one go. CBTV is not political at this time."