Digital cable TV is developing at a fast clip in China, with the number of households with access to the facility having reached 60 million throughout the country, according to one estimate. The number is nearly 10 times as many as the 6.56 million homes reported to have digital cable TV by the industry watchdog, the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) as of end-June 2006.

Digital cable TV, which offers subscribers a choice of at least 50 channels, is regarded as affordable. In general, subscribers enjoy basic channels, pay channels, information services and games.

In Beijing, a viewer pays RMB28 ($US3.70) for the service each month. In Guangzhou, the monthly fee is currently RMB17 ($US2.25) but this is set to rise to RMB26 ($US3.45) with effect from Jan 1 next year.

Cable TV digitalization is fastest in the more affluent coastal provinces, stretching from Shandong to Guangxi, according to Zhong Wen, Executive Editor in Chief of the Beijing-based New TV Magazine.

In several of the coastal cities, digitalization is far advanced. Johny Ji, National Tactical Planning Director of MEC China, notes that three coastal cities have completed 100% conversion to digital, namely, Qingdao, Hangzhou and Shenzhen. Two other cities, Dalian and Foshan, reported that over 50% of households were digitally ready at the end of 2006.

The transformation sweeping the digital cable TV scene in China provides a window on developments in other TV sectors, including HDTV, mobile TV, and IPTV. The Chinese TV industry breathes technology at the moment, leading global investment group, Morgan Stanley, to herald the next two years as the best investment period for China’s internet and digital TV sectors.

Not only are Chinese broadcasters pouring money into delivery networks but they are also hungry for content to distinguish their channels from rival offerings. Although the technological upgrading is going to take place anyway in China – a country which constantly hankers for state-of-the-art systems to keep apace of the latest in the field – the push to modernize is accelerated by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games when China will be on display to the world.

HDTV, naturally, is a focus of technological rollouts in China – but it is generally considered expensive by viewers.

Currently, there are three HDTV channels in China, run separately by CCTV, Shanghai Media Group (SMG) and China Film Group. They are all pay channels with the first two groups offering general entertainment programming and the third, movies.

CCTV is set to launch the country’s fourth HDTV channel, serving up movies, in the last quarter of this year. The national broadcasting giant is also eyeing an HDTV sports channel in time for the 2008 Olympics.

In all, China plans to have 10 HDTV channels by 2010. However, HDTV, which first went on the air on January 1 2006, has not caught on quickly with Chinese viewers. The current number of HDTV subscribers is regarded as insignificant and no official statistics have been released. One reason for this is the cost, with subscribers paying RMB120 ($US15.87) a month to watch CCTV’s HDTV channel. This is considered exorbitant compared to cable TV rates. Monthly fees aside, viewers also find HDTV sets and set-top boxes expensive.

At present, subscribers are clustered mainly in Beijing and Shanghai. Despite the lackluster start, several other Chinese broadcasters are making preparations for or conducting trials on HDTV services given the national focus on the medium. The stations include Shandong TV, Shenzhen TV and Tianjin TV.

While digital cable TV is gaining pace in China, the transition of terrestrial and satellite TV to digital has been slow. Luo Shigang, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Luo Shi Gang Technology Company said, “Cable has moved more rapidly because of the widespread adoption of the European digital cable broadcasting standard, DVB-C, in China.”

On the other hand, there is contention over the central government’s plans to adopt a Chinese standard for digital terrestrial TV. SARFT has announced that with effect from 1 August 2007, the terrestrial standard is to be DMB-TH. This is a hybrid of DVB-T, which is the European digital terrestrial TV standard, and signals formulated by the two Chinese universities, Qinghua and Jiaotong.

At present, DMB-TH trials are being conducted in eight Chinese cities. They are the six 2008 Olympic venues – Beijing, Qinhuangdao, Qingdao, Shanghai, Shenyang and Tianjin – as well as the two southern metropolises Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

The DMB-TH standard faces opposition from some quarters. This is because several cities launched digital terrestrial services years earlier while the authorities were still mulling over which standard to adopt. These pioneers use standards such as DVB-T and are loath to switch to DMB-TH because of the costs involved. However, SARFT has put its foot down, saying that all must adopt the DMB-TH standard with effect. Even so, despite the adoption of a common standard, some delay in operating broadcasting digital terrestrial signals is expected. This is because TV stations still have to wait for SARFT licences before they can begin digital terrestrial operations.

The last two years have also seen breakthroughs in the satellite TV scene. Municipal-level broadcasters set up satellite TV channels, moving into turf hitherto considered exclusive to national and provincial stations. What is also interesting about city-level stations operating satellite TV channels is that for political reasons, programming is in the vernacular and is not entirely in Putonghua, the lingua franca of China.

Yanbian TV, a station in a remote northeastern Chinese prefecture of the same name, is one of three municipallevel broadcasters currently authorized to operate a satellite TV channel. The channel, partly funded by the central government, was launched in 2006, offering programmes in Chinese and Korean. Yanbian lies on the Chinese-North Korean border and has a population of 2.2 million, nearly half of whom are Koreans.

Also started in 2006 is Shenzhen Media Group’s satellite channel which carries Cantonese and Putonghua programmes. They followed Xiamen TV which began its satellite TV channel in 2005. Xiamen is in Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan across the Taiwan Straits. Xiamen TV’s satellite channel airs programming mainly in the local dialect – Minnanhwa – which is also widely spoken in Taiwan.

For a range of reasons, provincial satellite broadcasters are also widening their services. Qinghai TV started an Amdolanguage satellite channel in 2006 to cater to the Tibetans who speak the dialect. This complements the Lhasa-dialect satellite TV channel operated by Tibet TV since 1999.

Hunan TV, considered among the most creative among China’s provincial-level broadcasters, established the country’s first satellite TV cartoon channel in 2004. The channel, called Golden Eagle Cartoon Satellite TV, was launched amidst a government drive for more domestic children’s programming. There has been an attendant increase in domestic cartoon content. According to SARFT, China’s animation output in 2006 totaled 81,000 minutes in 2006, or double that of the previous year.

On the direct-to-home front, however, China suffered a setback when its first DTH satellite, Sinosat-2, failed 10 days after its 29 October 2006 launch. Industry observers estimate that the country’s DTH plans would be deferred by at least a year as a result. All eyes are on China’s second DTH bird, Sinosat-9, which was planned to provide mutual back-up to Sinosat-2. It is scheduled to be launched in the autumn.

The number of direct satellite TV homes in China is at present estimated at 25 million, most of which receive overseas content via illegally-installed dishes.

Most Chinese Internet users prefer to watch video content over the Internet than over TV, according to CNNIC, an established Chinese Internet research group. The most popular content was movies, followed by entertainment, technology, sports and news.

CNNIC says Chinese Internet users numbered 162 million as of 30 June 2007, or 25 million more than on 31 December 2006. “In the first six months of this year, 100 new Internet users were registered in China every minute,” said CNNIC.

Sixty million of the Internet users were students, four-fifths of whom watch videos on the Net. CNNIC’s survey results followed those of a recent global study by New Paradigm, a company headed by Don Tapscott, author of Growing Up Digital, which found that 87% of Chinese Internet users aged 16 to 29 would rather live without TV than without the Internet.

Riding on the technology wave, China sees IPTV as the future. Since April 2005, at least four IPTV licences have been issued by the authorities. MEC China’s Ji cites SMG as the leader in this new medium. Shanghai Media Group (SMG), which received the first IPTV licence, achieved total rollout across Shanghai by September 2006. Apart from content from its own TV channels, SMG carries all CCTV and satellite TV channels on IPTV. Topping these, it allows full recording of the previous 48 hours. Other services in SMG’s sights include IP telephony, games and IPTV shopping.

At the end of 2006, about 500,000 households in China subscribed to IPTV, said Ji, adding: “The industry projects that the base would increase to 1.5 million households by end of 2007.” The other licensees include CCTV and Southern Media Group.

With new technology nipping at the heels of conventional cable TV and terrestrial networks, Li Ruigang, the President of SMG, exhorts: “If we still see TV as traditional TV broadcasting, this industry will be easily surpassed by the IT and telecommunication industry. If we can leverage fully on IT, TV will remain the centre of home entertainment.”

Add A Comment

  Post A Comment

There are no comments for the article yet.

Rate This Article

Excellent
Very Good
Good
Quite Good
Poor

  Rate This Article

Related Stories

Revamped STAR WORLD rates well - 14/11/2008

Hong Kong – The teen-centric series 90210 and Heroes’ long-awaited third season on STAR WORLD bowed to stellar ratings in Singapore. 90210’s premiere episode on November 4 at 9pm took the channel [...]

YR Asia channel to be distributed via MEASAT-3 - 14/11/2008

Kuala Lumpur - MEASAT announced it had signed an agreement to distribute the YR Asia channel across the Asia Pacific region via the MEASAT-3 satellite. YR Asia Satellite TV, a new entertainment cha [...]

Keeping news new in a 2.0 world - 1/11/2008

it’s been one hell of a spell for the world’s news gatherers; in the midst of covering the countdown to the US Presidential Elections – a race being played out in a more public arena than ever before [...]