China hot for 'Housewives'

ABC sudser will premiere on Everyday Jiayi

By ELIZABETH GUIDER

It was just a matter of time. Despite recent tightening by the Chinese authorities to keep U.S. pics and TV operators on a short leash, "Desperate Housewives" is about to explode onto the Chinese mainland.

The ABC sudser will premiere this September at 10 p.m. on the Everyday Jiayi block of primetime programming, which airs on state-run CCTV-8. Zone Vision operates the one-hour block, which airs seven nights a week on the broadcaster's countrywide cable system, reaching a whopping 700 million eyeballs, or about 180 million TV households.  

Whether any scenes or dialogue will have to be cut from the racy show remains to be seen, but even so, Chinese viewers will be exposed to a new level of Western-style sizzle. (A locally originated call-in sex show, a la "Dr. Ruth," was nixed last year by Beijing authorities as too risque.)

The Alphabet show was acquired by Zone Vision Networks, a London-based channels operator, in a deal with the Mouse House's foreign sales arm, Buena Vista Intl. Television -- Asia Pacific (BVITV-AP).

It's unclear precisely how the series will be scheduled, but typically Jiayi, which translates loosely as "Must See TV," runs telenovelas or Korean dramas every night until the episodes are exhausted.

Right now a Latin telenovela is nearing the end of its run on the block. As for the American suburban "Housewives," they will be dubbed into Mandarin.

The deal was unveiled Thursday by Steve Macallister, senior VP and managing director of BVITV-AP, and Chris Wronski, chairman of Zone Vision Networks. 

Zone Vision Networks recently acquired Encore Intl. Beijing, and this program acquisition is the first under the new ownership. 

"As part of our commitment to our relationship with CCTV and our viewers in China, we have made it a priority to acquire more notable Hollywood series and award-winning programming from around the world," Wronski said. 

No figure was available for the cost of the series to Zone, but it's thought the channel operator will be looking to acquire other current U.S. series for exposure in China. "Housewives" will be the only U.S. series to air though in the year 2005.

It's extremely rare for U.S. series and movies to end up directly on CCTV's domestic-oriented over-the-air channels anyway, so programming blocks like that on cabler CCTV-8 are the next best bet for wide exposure. Better a little money than none at all, a Hollywood distributor of series is likely to reason.

On the other hand, a number of U.S. TV series are available on pirated DVD -- how widely is hard to ascertain.

"Desperate Housewives" has already generated "a lot of press coverage and excitement in China," said Sarah Jiang, general manager of Encore Intl. Beijing.  "Acquiring a series of this caliber underscores our commitment to this market as well as to our partners at CCTV-8."

To date, the ABC hit is licensed by Disney's Buena Vista Intl. unit to 150 territories worldwide -- and is raking in $1 million-plus an episode from its overseas deals. For BVITV-AP, the agreement with Zone Vision was negotiated by the unit's China-based head Mark Chan. 

Zone Vision, founded in 1991, owns and operates not only programming blocks in various territories but also five round-the-clock niche channels: Reality TV, Europa Europa, Romantica, Club and the Horror Channel, which are broadcast in 125 countries -- and are now reportedly profitable.

These channels are presumably one of the sources for additional coin that Zone Vision can tap to acquire programming for China and elsewhere.

Zone Vision is 87.5% owned by Chellomedia, a division of Nasdaq-listed Liberty Global, a broadband provider that is part of John Malone's Liberty Media empire. Liberty Global reported a second-quarter loss Thursday of $123 million, but its stock closed up a penny to $46.94.