A joint venture lets pay-TV operator sell slots on its Horizon channel to be aired on a mainland network
Hong Kong pay-television operator i-Cable Communications has been given approval to broadcast a 24-hour information and entertainment channel on Shenzhen's cable network from Friday.
The joint-venture deal could point the way for other local broadcasters to tap Guangdong's advertising market.
The company has signed a three-year contract that will see Shenzhen Television air i-Cable's Horizon channel on its cable network, which has 750,000 to 800,000 viewers. In return, i-Cable will broadcast Shenzhen TV-1, a news and variety channel, to its 666,000 Hong Kong viewers.
Both broadcasters will set up sales teams to sell advertising spots on their cross-border channels.
Tsui Siuming, Hong Kong Cable Television's programming chief, said Shenzhen Television would ensure that no advertising slots were spliced out and resold to local advertisers, a long-running and costly problem faced by Hong Kong broadcasters on the mainland.
'It is a breakthrough,' Mr Tsui said, adding the deal would expand Horizon's nationwide coverage to 17 million to 18 million, compared with Phoenix Satellite TV with its potential audience of 20 million.
