Star China Media () is a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

media company currently owned by

China Media Capital China Media Capital ( Chinese: 华人文化) is a public equity and venture capital firm specializing in growth capital, mid venture, late venture, emerging growth, corporate restructuring, management buyouts, and mergers & acquisitions. The fir ...

. The company operates television channels

Xing Kong Xing Kong is a Mandarin-language television channel targeting Mainland China, currently owned by Star China Media (a subsidiary of China Media Capital). The channel was originally launched by Star in Hong Kong, but Star later sold the channel to ...

and Channel V Mainland China, and maintains Fortune Star film library. Its businesses were previously a part of the original

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...

Star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

group of television channels in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. China Media Capital took over a percentage of shares in them in 2010, and completed acquisition in 2014.

History

Founding

Star TV (Satellite Television Asian Region) was founded in

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Briti ...

(now called

since 1997) in 1991 as a joint venture between

Hutchison Whampoa Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL) was an investment holding company based in Hong Kong. It was a Fortune Global 500 company and one of the largest companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. HWL was an international corporation with a dive ...

and

Li Ka-Shing Sir Ka-shing Li (; born 13 June 1928) is a Hong Kong billionaire business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. As of June 2019, Li is the 31st richest person in the world, with an estimated net wealth of US$33.4 billion. He is the senior ad ...

. It was launched as a Pan-Asian beam-to-air

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

English-language entertainment channel for Asian audiences.http://www.globalmediajournal.com/open-access/the-role-of-the-nationstate-evolution-of-star-tv-in-china-and-india.pdf

1991 - 2009

In 1991, Star Greater China included

Prime Sports Prime Sports (originally known as the Prime Sports Network (PSN), and also known as Prime Network or simply Prime) is the collective name for a former group of regional sports networks in the United States that were owned by Liberty Media, oper ...

Star Plus StarPlus is an Indian Hindi language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Disney Star (formerly ''Star India''), a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. The network's programming consists of family dramas, comedies, ...

, BBC WSTV,

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

and Star Chinese Channel. In 1992,

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

's News Corporation purchased 63.6% of STAR for $525 million, followed by the purchase of the remaining 36.4% on 1 January 1993. Star broadcasting operations were run from Rupert Murdoch's Fox Broadcasting premises. Murdoch declared that: In June 1993, Star TV and Wharf Cable signed a deal in which Hong Kong's new

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

provider would carry Star TV's channels. However, the deal was terminated in February 1994 in the carriage dispute between the two parties. On 30 March 1996 at 7 pm

Hong Kong Time Hong Kong Time (abbreviation: HKT; ) is the time in Hong Kong, observed at UTC+08:00 all year round. The Hong Kong Observatory is the official timekeeper of the Hong Kong Time. It is indicated as Asia/Hong_Kong in the IANA time zone database. ...

, Star TV split Star Plus and Star Chinese Channel by certain areas

would serve viewers in

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

, while

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

and

Southeast Asian Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...

viewers would receive the new

Star World Star World (formerly known as Star Plus) is an English language entertainment television channel originally launched on 15 December 1991 as Star Entertainment () by STAR TV in Hong Kong as the old iteration of Star Plus. On 30 March 1996, the ...

channel and Star Chinese Channel would still be available to the viewers in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, but the television watchers in

and the

Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

would get the new

Phoenix Chinese Channel Phoenix Television is a majority state-owned television network that offers Mandarin and Cantonese-language channels that serve mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and other markets with substantial Chinese-language viewers. It is operated by ...

instead. In October 1996, Star Sports (since renamed from Prime Sports) and ESPN Asia have agreed to combine their loss making operations in Asia. The new joint venture, later named

ESPN Star Sports Fox Sports (formerly ESPN Star Sports) was a pan-Asian pay television network broadcasting in Asia, operated by Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company (Southeast Asia) Pte. Ltd. It also oversaw a version of Sta ...

, would be headquartered in Singapore (where ESPN's operations in Asia were based in). In 2009,

restructured Star so

Star India Disney Star Private Limited is an Indian media conglomerate and a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Disney Star network runs more than 70 TV channels in eight languages, reac ...

and Star Greater China were separated from its Hong Kong headquarters. Among the assets Star Greater China would oversaw included Xing Kong, Channel V Mainland China and Fortune Star film library.

Sale to CMC

In August 2010, it was announced that News Corporation would sell a controlling stake in its assets in mainland China to

(CMC), which was headed by Li Ruigang (of

Shanghai Media Group Radio and Television Station of Shanghai (RTS), a Shanghai-based state media outlet, and its wholly owned subsidiary, Shanghai Media Group (SMG), represent one of China's largest state-owned media and cultural conglomerates, with the most compl ...

).Young, Doug
News Corp sells controlling stake in China TV channels

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

August 9, 2010Chu, Karen
News Corp. sells Chinese-language channels to CMC

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

August 9, 2010 (via ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'')Coonan, Clifford
China Media Capital buys Star China
''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' August 9, 2010 Xing Kong (both dosmetic and international versions) and

Channel V Channel '' ("V" standing for the letter, not the Roman numeral "5") is a Chinese and former Asian pay television musical network originally launched by Star TV Hong Kong (now Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific). It was part of the unit of Disney ...

Mainland China, plus Fortune Star film library were in the sale, and a joint venture named Star China Media was created in the process. In January 2014, the company's management team and CMC acquired the remaining stake from

21st Century Fox Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., doing business as 21st Century Fox (21CF), was an American multinational mass media corporation that was based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was one of the two companies formed on June 28, 2013, f ...

(which took television businesses from the original

in the 2013 split). This marked 21st Century Fox's exit from Mandarin entertainment television market in Mainland China.

Businesses

;Television channels *

* Channel V Mainland China ;Television production * Canxing Media ;Film library * Fortune Star

References

External links

Xing Kong

Canxing Media

Fortune Star
{{Television in China Mass media in China Mass media companies of China Television networks in China Television production companies of China Mass media companies established in 1991 Former News Corporation subsidiaries 1991 establishments in Hong Kong