I recently came across an interesting interview with Li Ruigang, the man who runs Shanghai Media Group, one of the biggest media conglomerates in China.

It details how he is striving to take SMG and turn it from a government controlled “state asset” into a public company that can compete at an international level. There are also some good comparisons, such as seeing the revenue of the entire SMG group and all its media amounts to a mere 60% of what the Fox news channel in the US alone gets.

I think it is very interesting to see that government owned media companies are not as controlled as we are led to believe. Li seems very interested in getting as friendly as possible with foreign partners, to set the foundation for when SMG gets released from it’s Government control.

I am not sure how, when and if this will happen, but Li seems confident on that direction. All luck to him.

IPTV is the new wave in entertainment. It will enable content providers to give us access to countless on demand programs of high quality… but wait, surprise surprise, the Chinese government has a problem with that. It was a inevitable occurrence, that seems to have found its time.

Seems that SMG’s IPTV service was disagreeable with the local authorities in Quanzhou. So much in fact that they got banned across the whole province of Zhejiang. Shanghai Media Group is currently the only nationally licensed IPTV provider. Even so, they were told to get bent local permission as well. SMG was cooperating with local telecom operators, but still that was not good enough. Yes, everyone needs their cut, apparently. Next thing you know, you’ll be sleeping with the fishes. Upon further inspection, Zhejiang decided it was enough when SMG had around 10,000 subscribers in Quanzhou.

Better get workin’ on that guanxi! SMG is already in “negotiations”, which probably result in SMG financing the college education of the state’s administrators and unlimited KTV sessions.

IPTV subscribers are happy in Shanghai and Harbin though, enjoying their favorite shows without interruption. Seems the right people got the right amount of favor in those municipalities.

Related links: Shanghai Daily