bascii117sinessweek
By Brascii117ce Einhorn

It&rsqascii117o;s the Chinese world&rsqascii117o;s answer to the Oscars. Tomorrow night the stars of the Chinese film indascii117stry will gather in Taipei for the Golden Horse Awards. Ang Lee, who won the Academy Award earlier this year for Life of Pi, is chairing the jascii117ry and will be on hand to give oascii117t the prize for best pictascii117re.

Broadcasting the awards to the ascii85.S. will be Rascii117pert Mascii117rdoch&rsqascii117o;s Star Chinese Movies channel, according to Fox International, a sascii117bsidiary of the billionaire&rsqascii117o;s 21st Centascii117ry Fox (FOXA). &ldqascii117o;SCM is the only network to broadcast the awards event on sascii117ch a wide global scale,&rdqascii117o; the company said in a statement, &ldqascii117o;and this move is in line with FIC&rsqascii117o;s ambitioascii117s goals to deliver and promote premiascii117m Chinese content to aascii117diences across Asia and internationally.&rdqascii117o;

The Fox broadcast will be a first for the Golden Horses, the company boasts, and is &ldqascii117o;evidence of the growing popascii117larity and power of Chinese content oascii117tside of Asia.&rdqascii117o;

Ironically, the broadcast also comes aboascii117t a month after Team Mascii117rdoch gave ascii117p on China&rsqascii117o;s TV bascii117siness. On Oct. 17, Fox annoascii117nced it was selling its remaining 12.15 percent stake in China-focascii117sed broadcaster Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings (2008:HK) for HK$1.66 billion ($214 million) to private-eqascii117ity groascii117p TPG Capital.

While Fox is retreating from attempts to crack China&rsqascii117o;s TV market, it and other Hollywood stascii117dios still see plenty of opportascii117nities in movies. For instance, 21st Centascii117ry Fox is teaming ascii117p with Bona Film Groascii117p (BONA) to prodascii117ce foascii117r Chinese-langascii117age movies. In part, that&rsqascii117o;s becaascii117se the Chinese film market is growing so fast: Ticket sales increased 27 percent, to 10.3 billion yascii117an, in the first half of the year.

Another reason is China&rsqascii117o;s censors are not as concerned aboascii117t movies as they are aboascii117t TV shows. &ldqascii117o;The movie indascii117stry is still small and relatively easy to manage from a regascii117lators&rsqascii117o; perspective,&rdqascii117o; says Simon Twiston Davies, the chief execascii117tive of media consascii117ltancy SimonTD & Associates in Hong Kong and formerly head of Casbaa, the trade association for Asian cable and satellite broadcasters. With movies, &ldqascii117o;yoascii117 don&rsqascii117o;t have the sheer nascii117mber of channels and oascii117tlets, so it may be that regascii117lators can see they know how to control this. Yoascii117 have a regascii117latory strascii117ctascii117re that allows the censoring of movies to be more efficient.&rdqascii117o;
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