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Viacom plans 2nd production venture in China
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-24 14:30
Viacom Inc., the third-largest U.S. media company, will start its second
production venture in China and has won wider distribution for its MTV music
channel, Chief Executive Sumner Redstone said.
The company and Beijing
Television reached a verbal agreement to co-produce Chinese-language music and
entertainment programs in the Chinese capital, Redstone said. Viacom is already
hiring employees for a children's programming venture with Shanghai Media Group
announced in March, he said.
Viacom is vying with rivals such as News
Corp. and Time Warner Inc. to enter China, which has 1.3 billion people and is
the world's seventh-largest economy. China, which tightly controls the media to
help safeguard Communist Party rule, has eased some restrictions on overseas
broadcasters.
China in March dropped a ban on overseas investment in
film and television producers.
Viacom's effort to achieve full distribution in China will
probably proceed in many small steps over 10 to 15 years, said Vivek Couto, a
Hong Kong-based analyst with consultants Media Partners Asia Ltd.
Viacom's Shanghai venture has started developing its first programs in
advance of formal approval by the State Administration of Radio Film and
Television, and expects to start distribution early next year, said Redstone who
was in Hong Kong yesterday to attend a Forbes Global CEO conference. Chinese
officials have given the tie-up verbal approval, he said.
In March, Redstone said the venture would broadcast an initial nine hours a
day to 8 million households around Shanghai. Yesterday, he said Viacom
anticipates formal approval in time for the first co-productions to be made in
early 2005.
New York-based Viacom also announced that China Central Television will buy
more episodes of the "Wild Thornberrys" and "CatDog" animated series produced by
Nickelodeon, the U.S. company's children's channel. The companies are in talks
to have Viacom air China Central children's programs in the U.S. and to have
China Central buy more Nickelodeon programs.
Viacom didn't give the ownership, investment or schedule for the Beijing
Television venture. Charles Chau, Viacom's managing director for North Asia,
said in an interview in July that the company's investment in the Shanghai Media
Group venture was "several million dollars."
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