[December 19, 2005]

What is Driving Chinese IPTV Industry?

(Comtex Business)BEIJING, Dec 19, 2005 (SinoCast China IT Watch via COMTEX) --Beijing Gehua Cable TV Networks Co., Ltd. (Gehua Cable, 600037.SH) and Shanghai Media Group (SMG), China's two influential regional TV networks, just reached a deal on digital pay TV and IPTV cooperation, but the partnership seems has annoyed China Central Television (CCTV), the media tool of Chinese government.

Gehua Cable is authorized as the exclusive agent for broadcasting SMG's common TV, digital TV and IPTV channels and programs in Beijing area, according to the agreement between the two companies.

In the past, CCTV acted like the leader of all TV stations in China, but since the commercialization has been scouring every industry, it intends to make use of its leadership in grabbing money. CCTV original plan was to have all digital TV and IPTV users in the country bought set-top-boxes and the programs provided by it. But most of the rising local TV networks protest the proposal.

Conflicts soon developed into a constant but silent battle of seizing all TV-related resources, like popular program contents, network providers, audience groups, TV hosts and hostesses...

Similarly, China's digital TV and IPTV industries long have been facing bitter and sweet developments.

IPTV has been available in restricted areas of China since 2001, but technological and licensing uncertainties have limited its expansion.

It was until this summer China Telecom's Shanghai subsidiary and SMG launched their first joint trial of IPTV. The trial now has taken IPTV services to over 20 major Chinese cities.

At the same time, SMG also pacted with China Netcom for a more limited IPTV trial in the northeastern city of Harbin, but in October they decided to expand the service to larger areas. Besides, local IP service providers and online portals are getting in the game by offering video-on-demand (VOD) and limited TV services as part of their broadband packages.

Unfortunately, IPTV regulations have also caused a turf war between regulators. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), which controls the TV industry, is often at variance with the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), which controls telecommunications.

In 1999 the State Council banned SARFT and MII from involvement in overlapping services, but the new technology appears to have undermined that.

SARFT is the only ministry allowed to issue IPTV licenses, but it has been reluctant to hand them out to telecom operators because of fears the new services will detract from the digital TV rollout that has been the government's priority for the last couple of years.

So far, SMG holds the only IPTV license, which was granted earlier this year, despite the telecom monopolies' continued efforts to speed up the introduction of IPTV.

China Netcom and China Telecom are the main players in the country's fix-line phone and broadband Internet market. They argue that IPTV is just one of many broadband services they offer and should not require any further licenses than those already granted by MII.

"Anyway, as the trial IPTV services go smoothly, many problems are likely to be solved soon," noted an official from MII, "Since the regulators hope to see every capable operators earn from IPTV."

Statistics from China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) and China Internet Network Information Center show that China boasted 1.2 million IPTV test users by the end of 2004, far less than the 30 million and 94 million of broadband users and Internet users, indicating a great potential of the Chinese IPTV market. The number of China's IPTV users is expected to reach more than eight million by 2008.

From www.cnstock.com, Page 1, Friday, December 16, 2005
info@SinoCast.com

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]

Discussions: