Television Industry Asia

Dow Jones & Co. and General Electric Co.'s NBC network on Tuesday said they will combine their Asian and European business TV units and join forces in the U.S. to reduce losses and share the costs of expanding globally. The moves will allow the companies to cross-market brand names such as the Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones business news services; the CNBC cable channel; and MSNBC, which is NBC and Microsoft Corp.'s Internet and cable venture.

Rupert Murdoch's Star TV, the media mogul's big gamble in pan-Asian satellite broadcasting, appears to be off to a promising start despite recent cutbacks, management turmoil and censorship problems in some countries. Last summer, Murdoch bought a 64% stake in Star TV for $545 million. The acquisition gave his global News Corp. an opening in the world's fastest-growing TV market, which encompasses more than 2.5 billion people.

Sony Pictures Entertainment will begin a new 24-hour television channel in Asia dedicated to action and adventure entertainment. AXN will be available next month and will be the only channel in Asia concentrating on the genre, which will include feature films, series and extreme sports, the company said. Culver City-based Sony has recently invested in a number of channels and alliances in global television, including the 1995 debuts of Sony Entertainment Television in Latin America and India.

Dow Jones & Co. and General Electric Co.'s NBC network on Tuesday said they will combine their Asian and European business TV units and join forces in the U.S. to reduce losses and share the costs of expanding globally. The moves will allow the companies to cross-market brand names such as the Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones business news services; the CNBC cable channel; and MSNBC, which is NBC and Microsoft Corp.'s Internet and cable venture.

Sony Pictures Entertainment will begin a new 24-hour television channel in Asia dedicated to action and adventure entertainment. AXN will be available next month and will be the only channel in Asia concentrating on the genre, which will include feature films, series and extreme sports, the company said. Culver City-based Sony has recently invested in a number of channels and alliances in global television, including the 1995 debuts of Sony Entertainment Television in Latin America and India.

Say this for Time Warner Chairman Steve Ross, he can cut a mean deal. On Tuesday in Tokyo, Ross signed an agreement with Toshiba Corp., a big computer and electrical equipment company, and C. Itoh & Co.--one of Japan's biggest trading companies--in which the Japanese firms will pay $1 billion for a 12.5% interest in Time Warner's film studio and cable-television businesses, which include the Home Box Office and Cinemax channels.

For Pakistani actor and filmmaker Zia Mohyeddin, a defining moment of professional despair occurred during a recent trip to northern India when he stumbled upon 16 scrawny, poorly dressed villagers crowded around a television set. They were watching Pamela Anderson Lee scamper across the hot sand in her trademark red bathing suit. She was speaking Hindi, India's official language.

Guns N' Roses are rocking on MTV, but 26-year-old Richard Li Tzar-kai Li doesn't notice. "Lou Grant," the BBC news, a Mandarin-language soap opera and a tennis tournament are playing on the four other TV screens in his office, but Li ignores them, too--he's busy snapping orders at one of his executives. Li's Star TV is the hottest thing in global television, a pan-regional network that's beating out potential rivals and astonishing advertisers.

Satellite television's potential power first became clear to Daniel Ng, general manager for McDonald's in Hong Kong, when his teen-age daughter started spending hours watching Music Television, better known as MTV. "Young people often have very short attention spans, but MTV attracted my daughter and she continued to watch it for quite some time," Ng said. "Her interest convinced me that MTV was onto something, and that it was time for McDonald's to become a part of it."

For Pakistani actor and filmmaker Zia Mohyeddin, a defining moment of professional despair occurred during a recent trip to northern India when he stumbled upon 16 scrawny, poorly dressed villagers crowded around a television set. They were watching Pamela Anderson Lee scamper across the hot sand in her trademark red bathing suit. She was speaking Hindi, India's official language.

Rupert Murdoch's Star TV, the media mogul's big gamble in pan-Asian satellite broadcasting, appears to be off to a promising start despite recent cutbacks, management turmoil and censorship problems in some countries. Last summer, Murdoch bought a 64% stake in Star TV for $545 million. The acquisition gave his global News Corp. an opening in the world's fastest-growing TV market, which encompasses more than 2.5 billion people.

Guns N' Roses are rocking on MTV, but 26-year-old Richard Li Tzar-kai Li doesn't notice. "Lou Grant," the BBC news, a Mandarin-language soap opera and a tennis tournament are playing on the four other TV screens in his office, but Li ignores them, too--he's busy snapping orders at one of his executives. Li's Star TV is the hottest thing in global television, a pan-regional network that's beating out potential rivals and astonishing advertisers.

Satellite television's potential power first became clear to Daniel Ng, general manager for McDonald's in Hong Kong, when his teen-age daughter started spending hours watching Music Television, better known as MTV. "Young people often have very short attention spans, but MTV attracted my daughter and she continued to watch it for quite some time," Ng said. "Her interest convinced me that MTV was onto something, and that it was time for McDonald's to become a part of it."

Say this for Time Warner Chairman Steve Ross, he can cut a mean deal. On Tuesday in Tokyo, Ross signed an agreement with Toshiba Corp., a big computer and electrical equipment company, and C. Itoh & Co.--one of Japan's biggest trading companies--in which the Japanese firms will pay $1 billion for a 12.5% interest in Time Warner's film studio and cable-television businesses, which include the Home Box Office and Cinemax channels.