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Austar to broadcast Chinese channel

Austar will begin broadcasting China's CCTV to its subscribers from Thursday.

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Austar will begin broadcasting China’s CCTV to its subscribers from Thursday.

The announcement follows a reciprocal programming agreement with China’s national broadcaster CCTV that sees SKY News programmes broadcast in China.

The move is seen as political while SKY lobbies the government to control Australia Network, a diplomatic service that broadcasts Australian TV into international markets.

The ABC has attested that it is better positioned to run Australia Network than SKY.

But SKY, which launched public affairs channel A-PAC, has so far been successful in having the government hold an open-tender process for Australia Network after its contract expires in August 2011.

The English-language Dialogue programme from CCTV is broadcast weekly in Australia on A-PAC, while CCTV Business and trade news reports receive coverage from SKY News Business Channel.

The vice-president of CCTV, Zhang Changming, will travel to Australia for the Austar launch.

Source: The Australian

14 Responses

  1. Hey this is just a thought but is this some sort of “mine is better” fight between Austar and Foxtel?? Like Austar is saying “we’re more culturally diverse” while Foxtel is saying “we have more HD channels”. Like seriously now there are 2 channels that are not shown on each. And to be honest, I would go for HD over cultural diversity. Sucks I live in the country though =(. Any sign on when Austar will broadcast Nat Geo HD and Discovery HD?? Sorry if this isnt the place to make this comment but this was the first place I thought of.

  2. So CCTV International will be the one that will be shown on Austar. That means Edwin Maher will return to Australian TV screens soon! As for why it is still in 4:3, CCTV has only recently converted to digital, so only a few channels like the main CCTV1 channel is shown on 16:9.

  3. well thank you to Jer and i would just like to say to Austar that this idea is excellent in trying to increase its textuality but absolutely stupid with it in 4:3! i am the individual who updates the Austar Wikipedia page (and Foxtel aswell due to no metropolitean updating it) and there are already to many 4:3 channels in the 600’s as it is let alone adding another!

  5. Austar are serious about delivering various news perspectives on their platform with CCTV news and Al Jazeera, yet on Foxtel you are stuck with Sky News/Business, Fox News plus the only non-Murdoch news interests in CNN and BBC News tucked away at the back of the news package.
    Foxtel (controlled by News Corp) dont care about news variety. Foxtel customers deserve better.

    On the point of Sky replacing ABC backed Australia Network…What a disgrace that would be.
    There is a lot of Australian drama, doco and sports content on Australia Network that would disappear with a Sky News takeover. If Sky get the contract it will be a very sad day indeed. Sky should build their own distribution infrastructure if they want to have a regional news channel.
    Australia Network needs to keep its current form. Australia Network as a pure news channel will not do anything for Australia in the region.

  6. I think we’ll find the Chinese News Channel we’re getting is their international news channel that launched recently, not a Chinese language one…… well I hope anyway 😛

  7. No problem David. Of the 19 CCTV channels there are two that are both called CCTV News, both of which are produced in 4:3. The English-language one (formerly CCTV Channel 9) is called CCTV International and features former ABC weatherman Edwin Maher as one of its presenters. The Mandarin-language channel is called CCTV-News (with the hyphen) and could be the one that will be carried on Austar, although I think CCTV International will have been more suitable.
    BTW, the photo above is a screencap from CCTV1’s 7pm flagship bulletin.

  10. Ok in my opinion Austar/Foxtel would have been better gaining another foreign language channel like Rai and Antenna instead of a business channel in another language. Also i believe this channel would have been better used on the Foxtel network in the cities like Melbourne and Sydney where there are a large abundance of chinese imigrants (and i tried to write that as anti-discriminatory as possible so if i have offended anyone i am deeply sorry).
    Also will this channel be widescreen?? Foxtel/Austar’s plan to have all channels widescreen by the end of the year would be knocked back a step if they start broadcasting a new channel in 4:3 (my opinion seems though their list of 4:3 channels will increase by 1).

  12. Austar is actually broadcasting the CCTV News Channel, which is one of several secondary channels from the Chinese broadcaster. TVB Australia, a subsidiary of Hong Kong commercial broadcaster TVB, has been broadcasting CCTV Channel 4 (targeted at overseas Chinese) to Australian subscribers since 2006.

  14. Yeah, because there are a lot of Chinese people living in Austar broadcast areas.

    Is this network in English or Chinese?

    No doubt CCTV is Paying to have their channel carried!

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