As the official new media platform preparing to broadcast the 29th Olympic Games to be held in Beijing in August this year, CCTV.com is planning to come up with a detailed plan for the same, by the end of January.

On December 18, 2007, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the company the rights to broadcast Olympic events through television, Internet and cell phones. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) of the United States and the European Broadcast Union (EBU) had earlier acquired the rights with the same package mode.

In order to bid for the rights, CCTV had made preparations early in the second half of 2005, by establishing a new leading organization to manage and operate its over-scattered Internet resources. The group created short-, medium- and long-term development targets for the reorganization work in November the same year, and increased its investment and copyright input into the new organization.

In April 2006, the CCTV Internet Dissemination Center was set up, and CCTV International was also established. The two bodies are, in fact, part of the same organization, known as CCTV.com.

In accordance with its plan, CCTV.com would, in addition to accumulating a great amount of information, launched value-added services, including TV program transformation, cell-phone's streaming media, and other telecommunication services, such as messages, multi-media messages, and polyphonic ringtones.

Last year, CCTV engaged in arduous negotiations with IOC. The former was headed by Sun Yusheng, Vice President, Jiang Heping, sports channel Executive Director, Wang Wenbin, General Manager of CCTV.com, as well as the foreign experts invited.

One of the critical issues centered on the copyright costs of relaying the broadcast -- almost $10 million. The high price enabled many tenders of Internet Websites in China to shrink back; even Sohu.com, one of the sponsors of the Beijing Olympic Games, retreated from the competition.

The negotiated price was eventually acceptable to both sides.

"Acquiring the media broadcasting rights for the Games, will, no doubt, play a significant role for CCTV in promoting its strategic plans," said Yin Hong, Vice President of the School of Journalism & Communication of Tsinghua University.

Due to the prolonged negotiations, CCTV now faces pressing deadlines to begin operating its new media broadcasting, according to Wang Wenbin. During the past 27 years, CCTV, as China's official television company, had broadcast eight Winter Olympics and six Summer Olympics, attracting an audience of over a billion Chinese.

CCTV plans to broadcast the big events through its seven channels, including two pay channels and a high-definition digital channel.

"CCTV.com will enjoy the advantages of CCTV, and it is broadcasting the Games with the aim of integrating TV broadcast with Internet broadcast," said Wang.

CCTV.com had a trial run at the Spring Festival Gala Evening in 2007. Together with CCTV, it directly broadcast entire programs through the Internet and TV. For the first time, the company exploited peer-to-peer (P2P) technology and provided on-demand video services, making the occasion viewable for audiences worldwide. During the four-hour live broadcast, the number of people watching the video reached 110 million, and the highest numbers of netizens online at any point in time within the four hours hit 1.4 million.

CCTV had attempted to introduce trans-media terminals -- cell-phone TV and International Protocol Television (IPTV) -- at the Doha Asian Games held on December 4, 2006. On the one hand, the broadcaster joined hands with China Unicom to release hand-phone TVs. On the other hand, it directly broadcast the Games through IP of CCTV, by using four direct channels and CCTV-9. Audiences were able to watch the events though various media, including Internet, mobiles and IPTV.

For the broadcast of the Olympic Games, CCTV International made sure of value-added programming, by joining timely advertisement businesses. However, a media scholar, who declined to be named, doubted whether CCTV would make profits, given that negotiations lasted so long and CCTV.com missed the opportunity of taking part in the meetings of advertisement invitation tenders for the Olympic Games.

In September 2007, CCTV conducted two meetings to confirm the first two batches of Olympic Games advertisements. The income from advertisements is expected to exceed 2 billion yuan during the event.

As a CCTV-funded enterprise, CCTV.com will develop and operate multi-platform-based Internet, IPTV and mobile terminals. It will undertake exclusive sponsorship and is responsible for the Internet dissemination of various kinds of TV programs produced by CCTV. Its aim is to rank among the top few among domestic websites and world media websites.

The scholar worried, however, that in terms of capital operation, the broadcaster lacks flexibility and marketability.

(Source: China Business News)