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SCMP Reporter

THE grand-nephews of Hong Kong media tycoon Sir Run Run Shaw and the London-listed media company Wilton Group are to set up a GBP3 million (about HK$34 million) satellite television channel for Chinese viewers in Europe.

  Through the newly formed Shaw Media Corporation, Darren and Markus Shaw are initially investing GBP75,000 for a 20 per cent stake in the London-based Chinese Channel.

   Wilton Group is to hold the remaining 80 per cent of the company and is investing GBP350,000.

  Virtually all the programming for the subscription-only channel is to be supplied by terrestrial TV group Television Broadcasts (TVB), which Sir Run Run chairs, and will be mainly in Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese.

  It will begin broadcasting next month. Later the company hopes to supplement TVB programming with locally produced news and documentaries.

  Starting with an initial six-hour slot on the Astra satellite, which also broadcasts Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting channels, the company will offer free subscriptions to viewers for the first few months.

  Gerald Winnington-Ingrams, managing director of the new channel, said this would then move to GBP10 a month, until the station was given its own transponder on Astra, and was granted a 12-hour slot, when the subscription would rise to GBP24 a month.

  He said it was hoped this would be by November, although the recent loss of the Arianne space rocket had been a setback.

   Wilton chairman Michael Buckley said he expected the full broadcasting slot to be granted by September.

  Mr Winnington-Ingrams said research conducted for the company showed that on average a working Chinese person living in London was spending GBP20 a week on Chinese-language publications and videos.

  He said there were about 800,000 ethnic Chinese living in Europe, of whom between 275,000 and 300,000 lived in Britain, 225,000 in France, and more than 100,000 in The Netherlands. There were other large pockets in Denmark and Germany.

  Mr Buckley said he expected the channel to start making a profit by 1997-98, and attracting 70,000 subscriptions, just under 10 per cent of the European market.

  ''Channels make losses for some time, and then they switch suddenly into profit,'' he said.

  The company said that over the next two years shareholders to the project would be expected to contribute GBP3 million in total of fixed equity, which would be supplemented by medium-term interest-bearing loans, to support the channel while subscriptionswere being built up.

  Following a recent advertisement for the channel last week, said Mr Buckley, the company had received 1,000 calls from people expressing interest.

  The establishment of the Chinese channel is the company's third big move into the Far East in the past six months.

  In December, it acquired all the satellite and broadcasting interests of Clive Ng, who owns Hong Kong-based Noble Investment.

  Wilton also has a 50 per cent joint venture with United Artists, to develop multiplex cinemas throughout the region.

  Mr Buckley hoped to announce further media deals in the near future.



Shaw Media to set up TV channel for Chinese in Europe