1、Where exactly is the media going?Well, basically its going toward English language news, and its going abroad. Um, you are seeing Xinhua, who plans to start a 24-hour English channel. They are the state-owned wire services. Exactly, CCTV has recently launched an Arabic station in 22 countries. And C
2、hina Daily, which is the English language newspaper of Xinhua, they are planning a North American edition, they are planning a European edition. And they are recruiting heavily from western journalists to fill the ranks there. Why?Well, I mean thats a great question. One of it is that basically Chin
3、a wants to increase its soft power in the world, feels like that Chinas storys being skewed through western eyes, through western media. And it is, you know, intent on changing that. But its an uphill battle for them obviously, because its state-sponsored. Exactly, I mean, there is a serious credibi
4、lity issue here, that is, I mean, it wasnt that long ago when all state media was a straight mouthpiece of the Communist government, of the party. (Exactly.) So.Thats changed over time, I mean, there is more credibility with Xinhua, but it always is still always hampered by the, its, you know, its p
5、aycheck from the state, from the government. But within there, there are opportunities. Laura Flora wrote a piece for us today, looking at one company, Blue Ocean Network which is a privately-funded, Chinese-owned network, that is producing independent, and really some really strong segments geared
6、toward North American audience. If you wanna a flavour of that, check out this segment here: Im here in Dashila, a popular tourist spot, just south of the Tiananmen Square, and behind me is a scene that seems almost unthinkable just a few years ago. A campaign for same-sex marriage. Its still illega
7、l in China, but the people who are behind me are hoping to change that. We are gays and lesbians, and we want to show the general public that we are here in China.So you see its a little bit, you know, some more interesting content that you wont normally find in state media. Okay, Im interested in t
8、hat. This Blue Ocean Group said that they are doing mainly news and features, I guess, specifically for North American audience. (Exactly.) Why there?Well, because they think, with the power of the Xinhua and so forth, they think that there is a niche for them by, you know, basically telling themsel
9、ves as independent, as, you know, separated from state government, and bankrolled by private Chinese investors, to the tune of ten million dollars. Its interesting because, I mean, politically there are certainly plenty of tensions between the U.S. and China at the moment. And Im thinking when Al Ja
10、zeera launched, it was very difficult for them to get into the distribution network in the U.S. Im just wondering would someone like Blue Ocean, are they gonna come up against the same sort of things, same sort of concerns?Well, right now, they are in three markets only. Theyre in New York, New Jers
11、ey and Hawaii. But therere negotiations in which they say within the year they expect to be in most major cable markets in the U.S. So they seem to be addressing that. We have to wait and see how that goes. Okay, and do you think, Voigt, is this the sort of the canary, if you like, more likely to fo
12、llow, I gotta say, a sort of, an explosion of the privately-owned media companies from China going out?It will be interesting to see and it is important to know that, you know, Blue Ocean Network is broadcasting outside of China, they are .So it doesnt have the same, um, restrictions. (Restrictions, Exactly.) So you can actually do pretty much what you want to do.Right.
