Media giant News Corp is hoping a Chinese-made version of the hit US sitcom "Friends" will win fans when it launches a long-coveted local-language channel in China in the next few weeks.
Called "Joyful Youth," the newly filmed program will be among a host of locally produced talk shows, dramas and game shows that News Corp's Hong Kong-based unit Star Group will offer one million cable TV viewers in the South China's Guangdong Province.
The new channel, called Xingkong Weishi, or Star Satellite TV, marks News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch's biggest victory to date in his long pursuit of China market.
Late last year, China gave permission for cable distribution in Guangdong to three foreign media companies -- Xingkong, Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite TV, which is also 38 percent owned by News Corp, and AOL Time Warner's China Entertainment TV (CETV).
"The new channel is the most important initiative we have going on at this time" in China, said News Corp broadcasting executive Jamie Davis, who is heading up the channel.
Capturing the hearts
Building on lessons Star learned in India, Davis is banking on local language programing to win viewers for what it hopes will become a national channel reaching China's 100 million homes with cable TV.
"In order to really capture the hearts of the audience here, you must be local. And that means to speak the local language," Davis, a 35-year-old Chicago native, said.
Xingkong Weishi will be limited at first to airing in the Pearl River Delta region. The agreement also requires News Corp to carry an English channel of state broadcaster China Central Television on its cable systems in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
But the company hopes its landing rights will eventually be expanded beyond Guangdong.
"In the long run, yes, I want to be national," said Davis, who in 1994 came to News Corp's Fox Sports via CBS Sports.
"I wouldn't put in this kind of money if I thought that 25 years from now I'm still going to be in Guangdong Province," he said, referring to costly plans to produce more than 700 hours of original content in the channel's first year.
Local content
Starting with "Joyful Youth," the Star channel will cater to viewers in the coveted 18-to-45 year-old demographic.
Banking on parent News Corp's experience from its BSkyB network in Britain and Fox TV in the United States, Xingkong will produce 60 percent of its programing in China.
"If you want to hit the masses, which is how I believe you're really going to be able to make money in the market, it's by entertaining and capturing the hearts of everybody. And if you do that, you've got to have local programing tailor-made and catered to the local audience," Davis said.
By contrast, AOL's CETV last month unveiled a new lineup of "mostly acquired and repackaged shows" from Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Chinese mainland, Japan and Korea, a CETV executive said.
Grace Wong, a spokeswoman for AOL's Turner International, said CETV would boost its amount of original programing this year from about 20 percent currently.
"We will have 250 additional hours of original programing once we finalize our strategic alliance with a local Chinese partner," Wong said.
News Corp's Mandarin offerings may have to work overtime to win viewers in the Cantonese-speaking Pearl River Delta, where programs from Hong Kong's Television Broadcasts Ltd and Asia Television reign supreme, analysts said.
Shows from the two Hong Kong channels command roughly 60 percent of viewing time there, said Kristian Jhamb, an analyst with JP Morgan.
"In terms of pushing a Mandarin channel, they might not have too much success in Guangdong," Jhamb said.
Davis called the decision to broadcast in Mandarin "a long-term play."
While Guangdong, one of China's most affluent provinces, generates US$320 million in TV advertising sales each year, access to the larger market is considered the real prize.
Xingkong, which will be unencrypted and can be received in China with a satellite dish and an off-the-shelf decoder, may seek to tap into that market immediately, industry sources say.
Like Phoenix, which has for years claimed more than 40 million viewers across China, Xingkong may attempt to sell advertising on the back of a national audience, they said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 4, 2002)
