Cinacon 2007 Highlight: Majority of TV Watching is on PC in China by Alan J. Weissberger
Majority of TV Watching is on PC in China
At Cinacon 2007 this past Saturday in Santa Clara, Priscilla Lu, CEO of Videonline (with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Redwood City, CA) gave a most interesting presentation on the state of New Media in China. One of the most surprising facts was that more than 70% of TV and movies in China are watched on users PCs, rather than their TVs. This is because there is a strict limit on the number of foreign films and programs that can be shown on TV in China.
For China TV watchers, conventional Set-Top Boxes (STBs) serve up digital video to approximately 17 M subscribers. Three or four licensed companies (dominated by Shanghai Media Group) offer VOD via IPTV (over 2 M bit/sec DSL). There are less than 1M IPTV subscribers, all of whom have IP STBs. User generated content is starting to progress very rapidly in China and offers a huge market opportunity when combined with advertising.
If you are interested in research projects on the new media in China, please contact the author directly at
alan@viodi.com