US Media Firms’ Frustrations With China May Work In India’s Favour: NYT

“After many years of fervent lobbying and deal-making in China, American media companies have little to show for their efforts there and are increasingly shifting their attention instead to India,” says this NYT story, citing the latter’s relatively friendlier foreign investment policies and freedoms.

The story chronicles the difficulties in distribution in China (CNN reaches only hotel rooms for international travellers; MTV reaches only 14 million homes), that country’s archaic policies (a cinema can only show 20 foreign films a year) and the glacial pace of its bureaucracy. Several media firms–AOL (NYSE: TWX) and Warner Bros, for instance–have either pulled out or rolled back expansion plans in China. This “gradual disenchantment” of US media companies with China, is working to India’s advantage, the story says. “In India, American-owned networks can reach far bigger audiences than in China, because of fewer government restrictions. Recently, Turner Broadcasting and its movie studio, Warner Brothers, which are part of Time Warner, established a new English-language channel called WB in India. Turner Broadcasting Systems, another unit of Time Warner, has started a Hindi-language pay-TV channel, REAL.” The success of Colors, part owned by Viacom (NYSE: VIA), is another case in point.

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