HUTCHISON AND BBC WORLD SERVICE TELEVISION
1
The Hutchison Group of Hong Kong, of whose European arm Lord Derwent is Managing Director, have been discussing a joint
venture with BBC World Service Television (WSTV), the recently
formed commercial subsidiary of the BBC which is seeking to break
into international TV broadcasting by satellite. Hutchison are
part-owners of the Asiasat satellite and the project, on which final agreement is very close, includes the provision by WSTV of a news
and information channel. Hutchison, through their TV subsidiary
Hutchvision, are about to start broadcasting on five channels via
Asiasat. The satellite's footprint, or reception area, stretches
from Saudi Arabia across the whole of Asia to Japan, making this the
largest potential satellite audience in the world.
Once signed, the deal will be a breakthrough for WSTV in
extending its operations outside Europe, and will enable BBC news
and current affairs programmes to be seen throughout Asia. We have
significant information policy and commercial interests in seeing
the project succeed.
During the negotiations with WSTV, Lord Derwent and
Mr Richard Li of Hutchvision called on Miss Spencer to ask for a
letter of comfort as a formal expression of support from the FCO for the project. Hutchison see this support as providing protection against the political risk which they believe they are taking in investing in a project which may be subject to censorship from other countries in the region. Miss Spencer, with Ministerial approval, wrote them a letter of comfort, (copy attached) with which they seem
content. We were not however able to go as far as Lord Derwent
wanted in directly equating WSTV with BBC World Service Radio. This is because of the way in which we fund the World Service which is
formally required to broadcast in the national interest. This is
not the case with WSTV, an independent commercial operation which is being financed from the sales of BBC Enterprises overseas.
Secondly, we must remain even-handed between WSTV and its British
commercial competitors such as ITN's World News. It is not clear