The new Beijing-based company, Pearson CTV Media, will provide education and consumer content across television, broadband services and publishing for China’s 350 million television households.
The centrepiece of the joint venture will be a long-term cross-media effort in English Language Training as China works towards greeting the world in English at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. As part of this effort, from March 2002, CCTV will provide Pearson CTV Media with unprecedented distribution across its television network, which reaches more than 1 billion viewers every day.
Pearson Broadband, the broadband television division of Pearson plc, will own 50% of the venture, with CTV Media Ltd holding a 40% stake. Cyber Solutions Co. Ltd, a broadband and telecommunications services company based in Beijing, will hold the remaining 10%.
President of China Central Television (CCTV), Zhao Huayong, said, In August we began meeting with Pearson to explore how we might work together. Since then we have made great progress and I am delighted that we have established this long term relationship in the fields of education and television with Pearson.
Marjorie Scardino, Pearson’s chief executive, said: We are very pleased to have this opportunity to work with our partners to meet the huge demand for learning English that exists right across China. We aim to make the learning process more accessible and more engaging than ever before. We will be helped in achieving that goal by the unique nature of our joint venture with CTV Media, which spans television, publishing and China’s emerging broadband network.
Pearson CTV Media will produce a range of television programming to introduce conversational English in an entertaining setting on CCTV channels. Four television series are planned with two already in development and the first to be broadcast on CCTV’s Channel 10 (education and culture) and Channel 5 (sports) from early next year.
These shows will generate significant advertising and sponsorship opportunities for multinational corporations looking to promote their products in China.
All television programming will be supported with companion publishing from Pearson imprints including Longman, the world’s leading English Language Training company. Longman will publish print, online and audio courseware, and the joint venture will pilot broadband services, including self-study English language courseware. The pilots will run in Beijing housing complexes recently installed with high bandwidth internet connections.
