If News Corporation and AOL Time Warner succeed in landing in
China, they are likely to change Asia's television landscape quite
dramatically.
Both have been tenacious in their efforts to break into the world's most
populous market; News Corp more than its rival. The Murdoch-owned media
giant even dropped BBC from its line-up of Star programmes when the
British broadcaster aired a series of critical documentaries about
China's political and social woes.
Despite the recent announcement, it seems somewhat premature to crow
about the deal - the prize for now is broadcast rights for southern, not
the whole of China, and that is still under negotiation. The worry is
that it could take just as long - Star spent the better part of the last
decade wooing China - to scoop up broadcast rights for the rest of the
mainland.
When that happens, the two global media giants will naturally claim
first mover advantage. Although in the mainland , the first one in
doesn't neccessarily have an advantage - later entrants at least have
the benefit of picking up valuable lessons from the early birds for
traversing the many minefields that make up China's business scene.
Certainly in TV, the jig-saw is far from complete with China only in the
early stages of overhauling its TV industry. But the two deals should
excite rivals like Viacom, Discovery and Hallmark, and spark a scramble
for an audience with China's broadcast authorities.
But there is an obstacle to mining China's pot of gold. In return for
opening the door to Guangdong, China has insisted that the pair carry
its national broadcaster CCTV in the US. But CCTV is largely seen as the
Chinese Government's propaganda arm and this demand has the makings of a
political hot potato.
Which may explain why details of the negotiations were announced before
the deals were completed. In all probability, China was testing the
waters to gauge US public reaction before moving on. The deal is far
from done.
