China’s CCTV Weds Cisneros Venezuela and Florida-based media and entertainment company The Cisneros Group of Companies and China Central Television (CCTV) inked an agreement to distribute content across their respective regions. The deal was finalized in August during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. It represents the first-ever alliance between a Chinese and a Latin American television company. The two firms have an aggregated TV audience of 1.5 billion throughout Latin America, Europe and the People’s Republic of China, so each side stands to gain a substantial amount of viewers from the deal. Other perks of the partnership include shared access to both organizations’ complete catalogues and upcoming co-productions. Chairman of The Cisneros Group, Gustavo Cisneros, cited his company’s numerous telenovela properties as the most attractive to CCTV. “We are already providing our popular Latin American soap operas to China which — like many other countries around the world — has a great appetite for this attractive form of international entertainment.” Meanwhile, Zhao Hua Yong, president of CCTV, said that he “looks forward to building a cultural exchange between Latin America and China.” The Cisneros Group is an organization made up of a variety of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking broadcast television and telecommunications companies, including Venevision International. CCTV is China’s leading television network, operating 209 local stations. Murdoch Grows India’s Media Rupert Murdoch has announced plans to expand his News Corp empire in India. The AustralianAmerican mogul revealed that his media company will invest $100 million in six new regional TV channels in India . The new channels will join Star TV, News Corp’s existing Indian satellite service. Murdoch will launch the channels in the next 12 months, although he has not yet unveiled the cities where they will be based. The investment by News Corp is an attempt to take advantage of India’s growing commercial activity. The region’s television advertising sector is growing rapidly, and brought in the equivalent of U.S.$2 billion in revenue in 2007. Tam, the Indian ratings company, predicts that commercial advertising will grow by 18.5 percent in the next four years. At the moment, the Indian government limits foreign investment in print and broadcast to 26 percent, a measure that protects local news outlets. The cap won’t hinder Murdoch’s plans for TV, although he’s still hopeful that regulations will be relaxed in the future. But while Murdoch and company have jumped into the television sector full force, they have been discouraged in the print media sector. U.S. TV Net Vs. FRAPA Aleaked memo to employees of New York-based TV network ABC has caused a stir with the Format Recognition and Protection Agency (FRAPA), a Cologne, Germany-based international organization that safeguards formats. On June 14, 2008, BC Studios executive vice president Howard Davine sent out a memo to the network’s executive producers, which, according to FRAPA’s interpretation, hinted that producers should circumvent intellectual property laws. The memo, which was originally OC T O B E R 2 0 0 8 (Continued on Page 6) Gustavo Cisneros of the Cisneros Group (left) and CCTV’s Zhao Hua Yong
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