Discovery Communications, the US cable group that owns channels such as TLC and Animal Planet, has struck a deal in China to supply all of the programming for a new digital venture

March 29, 2014 Leave a comment

March 20, 2014 1:00 am
Discovery in deal to supply programming for Chinese digital channel
By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles
Discovery Communications, the US cable group that owns channels such as TLC and Animal Planet, has struck a deal in China to supply all of the programming for a new digital venture.
Qui Suo, a new digital subscription channel being launched by Wasu, a media group owned by two state-owned Chinese companies, will be available across China. Wasu has almost 20m cable subscribers and operates the largest Chinese online video platform.
The deal gives Discovery, which is keen to expand its international business, a bigger presence in the world’s fastest growing media market. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

China’s online video market is evolving fast: about 450m people watch it, with the number expected to rise to 700m by 2016, according to iResearch, a media research group.
Discovery provides programming to other Chinese TV networks but distribution of its content has been limited by regional restrictions. “The new channel will introduce millions of Chinese viewers to some of Discovery’s best content,” said Arjan Hoekstra, president and managing director, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific.
The deal comes as Discovery ramps up its international operations, after investments in European media groups such as Norway’s SBS and Eurosport, the pan-European sports network.
The company is among the bidders for Channel 5, the UK free to air network that is being sold by Richard Desmond. Discovery is known to have had discussions with BSkyB over a joint bid for Channel 5.
Saban Capital, the investment firm controlled by Haim Saban, the Israeli-born billionaire, also explored a bid but pulled out over Mr Desmond’s valuation, said people familiar with the matter.

Filed under Macro Trends, TMT Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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