SATELLITE & CABLE: V's Chinese Music Awards creating distribution spree

This kind of music awards show, organised in collaboration with local stations, are crucial in promoting the channel; one major key value is getting the brand into China. Music awards shows have been an event highlight for foreign music networks, for whom the staging of such shows carries immense implications in terms of distribution clout in China. Now in its fifth year, Channel V's Chinese Music Awards, held in Beijing last January, gained distribution to more than 50 cable stations across the mainland. Despite the fact that the awards show itself would not make any profits, Channel V managing director Steve Smith said the syndicated programming of the show itself established a panel of stations to promote the V brand. Organised in conjunction with Beijing Cable Television, with support from the China Cable Television Association, the China Music Awards generated nationwide publicity, with 30 awards presented to artists from Greater China. Mr Smith said this kind of music awards show, organised in collaboration with local stations, was crucial to promote the channel. One major key value, he said, was that "this is the way to get the brand into China". "It's difficult for us to do the marketing (activities) we need to do because we need permits," said Mr Smith, noting that local partnerships were vital for building up both the brand and distribution. With daypart distribution on 35 cable systems in China, Mr Smith said Channel V grew by 25 per cent both in distribution and advertising sales last year. Localisation is an inevitable move for regional cable and satellite networks as they vie to widen viewership and advertising revenue. Channel V plans to separate the Greater China feed into one for Taiwan and one for the mainland, with the objective of giving advertisers more flexibility. Sponsorship accounted for about 75 per cent of the channel's total advertising revenue; in the long run, Mr Smith said, Channel V was trying to bring the proportion down by 50 per cent to get more clients in on spot buys. The Chinese Music Awards this year was sponsored by Motorola with associate sponsorship from Netvigator, as well as support from the FM Select channel of Hong Kong's Metro Radio, Beijing Swissotel and Vectra Opel. Advertising revenue from syndicated programming will be shared with local stations. China is a tough market for programming syndication, because forming a mutually beneficial partnership is a problematic issue for many foreign networks in the mainland. Staged as a Greater China event, Mr Smith said the Chinese Music Awards will take place in Hong Kong after being held in China (Shanghai and Beijing) for two years. The China Music Awards was not just a one-off event for advertisers; Mr Smith said the programme offered marketers a communications platform on a big scale. Creative media buys and better quality production were among the advantages of sponsoring this kind of music awards organised by an international channel, said a spokesperson from Motorola. "It's not just about sponsoring the event, but also the telecast as a whole," said the spokesperson, who noted it was generally difficult to find this kind of flexibility dealing with local stations.

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