China Media Monitor Headlines Archives

A Chinese enterprise plans to buy a stake in Hollywood’s Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), the new company formed after bankruptcy, disclosed Zhou Tiedong, general manager of China Film Promotion International, in an interview on November 4 with Legal Evening News. The U.S. law firm Kaye Scholer LLP is dealing with the matter. However, he refused to tell the exact name of the Chinese company on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. Other reports suggested the enterprise is privately-owned Poly Bona.

China’s largest private film distributor Poly Bona will seek a listing on NASDAQ in December, reports Guangzhou Daily citing an unnamed source. It also plans to buy a stake in Hollywood’s Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in order to invest in production of overseas films and introduce them to mainland China.

As the first private enterprise with a film distribution license from the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT), Poly Bona was founded in 1999 and has distributed more than 120 films from home and overseas. Since 2003, it began to invest in film production and has completed more than 20 titles.

Hong Kong listed Stellar International has announced it will acquire more cinema business in mainland China at a price of RMB98.5 million (US$14.8 million), reports Entgroup. It will increase its stakes in Beijing’s WangJing Stellar International Cinema and Mingxiang International Cinema by 35% and 22.14% to 95% respectively. It will also buy 43% stakes in another Beijing cinema with 1,108 seats and a 95% stake in a Chengdu cinema with 730 seats.

Wholly-controlled subsidiary SMIIC also announced in July it will acquire another 25 cinemas in mainland China from its major stockholder Qin Hui at a price of HK$55 million (US$8 million), following its successful acquisition of 12 cinemas at a price of HK$1.2 billion (US$180 million).

Indian film My Name Is Khan is to receive a revenue-sharing release through Chinese distributor Huaxia, reports Film Business Asia web. The film will premiere on November 30 as one of only 20 revenue-sharing slots per year. The China deal was arranged through Twentieth Century Fox’s Beijing representative office. The last Indian film to be given a theatrical release was Lagaan in 2002.

November 1 saw China Radio International (CRI) launch its medium wave channel AM1470 in Tijuana. This is CRI’s first Spanish channel in Latin America. AM1470 in Tijuana broadcasts 12-hours of Spanish programs from 18:00-06:00, covering news reports, sports, entertainment and talk shows. It is expected to cover 6 million listeners.

To date, CRI has launched 50 self-owned channels (instead of rental time-slots) outside mainland China, second only to the BBC. It has 1,100 hours of programs in 41 languages on overseas channels (both self-owned and rented time-slots) every day, covering five continents.