Chinese TV networks plan ASEAN alliance

Bangkok-based Dongmeng Television is hoping to form an alliance of all of the Chinese-language TV stations in Southeast Asian countries.

Through the alliance, the stations could share resources such as jointly purchased copyrights and adopt digital and Internet-based technologies, said He Jiang, director of Dongmeng Television and deputy president of Sunway Media Group, owner of the Chinese-language station.

"Chinese-language media are minor market players in ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). ... If we work together, we will become stronger," He said.

Sunway, which is engaged in advertising, e-commerce of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics production and property development, made its first foray into the Thai market by buying the right to operate a Chinese-language TV channel in 2010, after a decline in its advertising business.

The group applied for a license for Dongmeng Television, which means ASEAN TV in Chinese, and started broadcasting in 2012.

Dongmeng broadcasts news, entertainment programs, dramas, documentaries, movies and music, all of which are accessible in Chinese communities, apartment buildings, hotels and on local cable television networks.

Subscribers total 12 million in countries such as Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore, including 8 million in Thailand alone.

It cooperates with a number of its counterparts in Southeast Asia through sharing news and other programming, and runs news bureaus in some of the countries.

Having invested 70 million yuan ($11.29 million) in the TV station, Sunway Media Group expects to start reaping profits by 2016.

He, the Dongmeng director, sees a bright future ahead for the station, based on the strategic partnership between China and ASEAN, and the expected rise of ASEAN's economies in the coming decade.

Overseas Chinese total more than 50 million, about 70 percent of whom live in Southeast Asia, said a survey conducted last year by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Dongmeng TV accounted for nearly 25 percent of Sunway's media revenue, which stood at more than 60 million yuan last year. The TV business is also connected to tourism-related businesses.

He said he hopes the group's TV programs will appeal to new generations of overseas Chinese.

What the station needs most, apart from equipment, he said, is TV professionals who are proficient both in English and the local language and understand the local way of thinking and living.

The domestic operation also is striving to transform by developing animated games and consolidating media and e-commerce resources.

The group aims to have its pharmaceutical e-commerce arm, jianke.com, listed on the National Equities Exchange and Quotations, an over-the-counter market that is known as China's third board, later this year, He said.

Sunway Media is just one of several Chinese companies that started investing in TV stations or channels targeting foreign audiences in the past decade.

Blue Ocean Network, founded by Beijing-based Blue Ocean Group, began broadcasting in 2010.

It has the broadest coverage and largest Western audience of any non-State English-language Chinese TV network, and covers Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe and Africa, according to its website.

In 2009, Beijing-based Xiking Group, founded by Ye Maoxi, a businessman from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, bought then-money-losing British satellite TV station Propeller TV.