VOICES

What has to happen is that Rupert (Murdoch) and Sumner Redstone (CEO of MTV parent Viacom) have to get MTV Asia and Channel V on their radar screen for the same 10 minutes or so.

Channel V Asia managing director Steve Smith quoted in The Asian Wall Street Journal.

Steve is starting to sound like a drowning man. There has been no conversation about a merger for many months and from our point of view it's a dead issue. We've tried to stay clear of the mud-slinging. But Channel V is throwing out more smoke than the ice machine at a rock concert.

MTV Networks Asia president Frank Brown responding to Channel V's Steve Smith's remarks on a possible merger between the two channels and the war of words that has started between the two in Asian media quoted in The Asian Wall Street Journal.

Most Chinese people are officially barred from receiving foreign satellite broadcasts, but millions do anyway...it's doubtful that Beijing can police a vast country (China) in which 85% of households own a TV set. In a country where the media have been guided to spread the ruling Communist party ideology, Mr Rupert Murdoch's presence may signal the most revolutionary idea of all: media can be a business like any other.

A report in The Wall Street Journal on media baron Rupert Murdoch's successful Chinese free to air satellite television joint venture, the Phoenix Channel.