BEIJING: Bloomberg Television has been awarded one of the two fresh licenses issued so far this year by the Chinese broadcast regulator, to distribute its English-language finance news and information channel on the Chinese government-run direct-to-home satellite TV platform. 
The green signal gives the channel access to hotels, foreign housing compounds and government offices in the world's fastest growing financial market.
Under the agreement, the China International Television Corporation (CITC), the commercial arm of the nation's broadcasting regulator, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), has granted Bloomberg Television a national license to commence broadcasting its 24-hour Asia Pacific feed this month on the SinoSat platform.
Star TV was the first foreign television company to win the rights to broadcast into China, along with AOL Time Warner, which also gained permission to launch a channel in a limited area in Guangdong.
Bloomberg Television's total household viewership in the Asia Pacific region has increased by 77 per cent in the past 18 months, with 24 million households throughout the region now receiving the channel's market-moving financial news, analysis and information, claims the company. The channel's hotel distribution more than doubled during the same period, it says.