CETV will be distributed from China's central satellite platform via Sino Satellite. CETV, which was earlier limited to about one million households in southern China, will now also be available on additional cable TV systems in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, doubling its penetration in those two cities to more than two million homes.

Besides CETV, 30 foreign channels earlier won approval to broadcast to three-star or higher-rated hotels, foreign compounds and other select areas in the mainland.

CETV sees this as a chance for an increase in viewership of programmes. AOL said CETV's advertising revenues had increased 470 per cent year-on-year from the fourth quarter of 2001. Of course this hardly means anything since the base from which these projections have been made are pretty small.

It is one of the four channels that have both landing rights in southern China and hotels and other specified venues. The others are Xingkong Weishi, Phoenix Chinese and the Movie channels. These are all directly or indirectly controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.