Beijing, China — In a continued effort to grow the infrastructure and digital television business, China’s Global Broadcasting Media Group (GMG) and Novel-SuperTV (STV) jointly announced the preliminary plan to launch The Media Foundation, which will provide relevant technological, professional and support services to selected broadcasters and operators in countries part of the “Belt and Road” initiative.
When implemented, The Media Foundation will assist in accelerating the growth of the “Belt and Road” initiative, by strengthening exchanges and mutual learning among countries involved. In the long run, it can be viewed as a plan beneficial to all as it promotes regional economic cooperation and prosperity.
“The Media Foundation will be an extensive plan, providing about US$500 million of funding during Phase 1 of the launch and, depending on the result of Phase 1, a total of US$2 billion worth of funds over a three-year period from 2015 to 2018. We aim for The Media Foundation to come to life during the fourth quarter of 2015,” said Liu Bo, Vice President, Global Broadcasting Media Group (GMG). “The areas of investment include overseas broadcasting, telecommunications, broadband networks, media infrastructure and operational projects.”
The Media Foundation, will partner with strategic investors from countries along the “Belt and Road”, including merchant banks, financial institutes, broadcasters and broadband network operators. It will also include corporate partnership at a local operational level, as well as incorporate overseas funds and fund of funds (FOF). With China planning to invest nearly US$800 million to improve its terrestrial transmission system this year, The Media Foundation will be an opportune move forward not only for the businesses involved, but also for the industry as a whole.
Liu added, “What is more significant is that, corporations will be given free rein to improve their media infrastructure. Once stimulated, The Media Foundation has the potential to change the eco-system and economic development model of digital television and multi-screen devices along the countries of the “Belt and Road” initiative.”
The Media Foundation will invest its resources on select broadcasters and operators and will focus on TMT (Telecoms, Media, and Technology) areas. Apart from core technologies of Conditional Access (CA), Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Electronic Program Guides (EPG), it also provides solutions for TV standards such as the DTMB (Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcast) technologies and the AVS+ (Audio Video coding Standard +), the new encoding decoding standard, which has already been deployed in China.
