SATELLITE & CABLE: Sweet music to mainland ears - "CCTV and MTV are building a relationship which clearly intrigues the Chinese government"

In an exclusive article for MEDIA, CMM-I talked to MTV Networks

International president William Roedy about the CCTV-MTV Music Honours,

Channel V and China's accession to the WTO and looks at the growth of

music TV sponsorship on the mainland.

On June 12, the second annual CCTV-MTV Music Honours were held in

Beijing as China's national TV broadcaster and the global music network

build on a relationship that clearly intrigues the Chinese government

and which is generating keen interest from major advertisers.

According to Mr Roedy, this year's CCTV-MTV Music Honours was broadcast

on CCTV to over 500 million households in China and more than 70 million

households in Asia through MTV.

Mr Roedy said sponsorship from leading Internet portal Sina.com and

German electronics manufacturer Siemens have made the event profitable

despite differences in their corporate cultures.

"The co-production with CCTV has brought together two very different

companies and we have been sitting side-by-side collaborating on

everything from choosing the acts and the awards, down to the right

camera positions," he said.

This year's collaboration resulted in the China debut of international

star Alanis Morissette and the presentation of 22 awards including the

band of the year, best new artist and song of the year.

Mr Roedy saw great potential for the Chinese TV market because it has

the necessary cable infrastructure in place, which, he added, was ahead

of many other countries.

However, he noted that current regulations on foreign involvement have

made progress slow.

"We have built a strategic relationship and co-operation with CCTV and

we produce shows with other key local TV stations. We are here for the

long term and are devoted to doing things the legal way," he said.

As for China's likely accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO),

Mr Roedy saw it as representing something of an anticlimax for MTV.

"We have been working in China for so long and nothing in the agreement

has specifically addressed the television industry."

While he does not believe in being too euphoric about the China market,

Mr Roedy is clearly excited that accession to WTO will encourage more

advertisers to come into the Chinese market.

However, the CCTV-MTV Music Honours are not the only music event that

has come to Beijing in recent months and MTV is not the only

international player seeking to win the music wars in China.

Music awards and shows give international networks distribution clout in

a market that still restricts the screening of foreign programming.

While the direct broadcast of foreign channels is prohibited in China,

foreign providers have made headway through the barter of programming

blocks to mainland channels, co-production of local shows and by making

estimates as to how many households might have access to their channels

via satellite dishes and cable networks.

Heineken recently brought six international and local bands together in

its "Heineken Beat" two-day open air concert in Beijing (MEDIA, May 26),

while Star TV's music channel, Channel V, held its fifth annual music

awards at the beginning of the year.

The China Music Awards, held in conjunction with Beijing Cable TV,

gained distribution to more than 50 cable stations with the support of

the China Cable TV Association. Sponsors for the Channel V show were

Motorola and Netvigator.

Meanwhile, MTV and Channel V both claim a superior following among the

mainland Chinese audience.

The latest PeopleMeter study conducted by ACNielsen for Star TV has

reported that Channel V ranked 12th in a list of the top 21 channels in

China.

Although the survey is representative of TV households with access to

Star TV, the percentage of Star households in the national total remains

an unknown.

Commenting on the survey, Mr Roedy told MEDIA that, "in every objective

study, MTV outperforms Channel V in all respects including ratings,

distribution and revenue".

Mr Roedy said that MTV would continue to develop its relationship with

CCTV and other partners in China especially in bridging the still wide

gap between music television MTV style and similar shows on CCTV.

Source: CMM Intelligence.