Eliminating the false and retaining the true, explaining the IPTV license and naked users

Recently, as Hunan Radio and Television Station passed the acceptance of the IPTV secondary broadcast control platform of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, a lot of news about IPTV licenses has emerged, some true and some false, confusing many people. Perhaps it is worth sorting out to set the record straight:

1 About the number of IPTV integrated broadcast control licenses

The so-called 12 license plates are incorrect. This actually mixes up history and does not take into account the replacement of old and new license plates.

With the issuance of Document No. 344 by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the system of IPTV adopting a two-level broadcast control structure was established. The IPTV license system was applied for from the original place, and the status of the issuance by the General Administration was gradually clarified. The previously issued IPTV licenses were replaced and entered the stage of history. (Of course, this process takes time, and most of them adopted a peaceful mode of not renewing the original licenses upon expiration)

Therefore, in terms of the number of IPTV licenses:

The total number of licenses eligible for integrated broadcast control licenses is (32)

First-level broadcast control license: 1 (issued)

Secondary broadcast control license: 31 (1 for each provincial TV station (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), but in actual operation, it needs to be approved by the General Administration before it can be issued. It takes time between being qualified and obtaining the license, so the license is issued in a post-approval manner.)

2. Regarding the number of IPTV secondary broadcast control licenses

According to statistics from the Streaming Media Network, as of now, there are four second-level broadcast control licenses that have been officially accepted and issued by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, namely Liaoning, Guangdong, Chongqing and Hunan.

The information disclosed by the media that Jiangsu and Sichuan obtained IPTV broadcast control licenses in 2013 is not completely accurate. The correct description is that in 2013, Jiangsu and Sichuan obtained the approval of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television to connect to CCTV's central platform for IPTV development in their local areas, but they did not obtain formal broadcast control licenses. (The background of the issuance of this approval also involved the adjustment period of the IPTV license system that year. Ai Shang needed to cooperate with local TV stations to gradually cut off BesTV users, and the local platforms jointly applied to the General Administration for a document. This can be regarded as a small case in the waves of IPTV development.)

In order for local TV stations to formally obtain an IPTV broadcast control license, they need to undergo technical testing and on-site acceptance by a team sent by the General Administration, which is composed of the Network Department, Science and Technology Department, Academy of Broadcasting and Radio, and Supervision Center, and the license will then be formally issued after relevant discussions by the General Administration’s Party Committee.

The previous slow progress was mainly due to the power game between the first and second-level broadcast control platforms, plus the entanglement of Yueme, the first-level was too strong and the local government did not buy it. Now with the appointment of the new leader Pan Hongmei, the relationship between the first and second levels has begun to ease. It is estimated that the issuance of the second-level broadcast control license will also be accelerated this year.

3. About the naked running of IPTV users

Some media have inferred from the review of IPTV secondary licenses that the majority of IPTV users in the country are illegal users or are naked, which is inaccurate.

From 2005 to 2016, the development of IPTV in China has been constantly exploring and developing in the game between radio, television and telecommunications. There are many historical legacies and many conflicts of interest, which has led to the current IPTV still being in a state of development and sorting out.

Regarding the legitimacy of IPTV user development, it has gone through several stages:

Phase 1: Gaming, reconciliation, from gray to white

Since 2005, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has issued a series of national IPTV licenses, allowing BesTV, CCTV, Southern Media Group and China Broadcasting Corporation to develop. However, the Administration was afraid of the backlash from local cable TV stations, so it made a small move, which was to first open a number of pilot areas (such as Shanghai, Heihe, Mudanjiang, etc.); secondly, it required that when national licenses were developed outside these pilot areas, they must be approved by local radio and television stations and reported to the Administration. (This can also be seen as the initial prototype of the two-level broadcast control architecture)

However, in actual development, the first batch of IPTV integrated broadcast and control license holders adopted flexible IPTV cooperation measures, developing users while exploring the policy bottom line. It should be said that before 2010, IPTV users in many regions belonged to the gray area, and that stage was also the period of the most intense game conflicts in various places. However, it is precisely because of the user scale established at this stage that it has become a strong support for coordinating policies. Therefore, there was a proposal for IPTV in the 2010 State Council's three-network integration document, and the SARFT's 2010 Document No. 344 was proposed. Therefore, the development of China's IPTV, like many national industries, has gone through a process from gray to white, and finally gained policy recognition.

The second stage: the game triggered by the shift from external to internal

Since 2010, with the launch of the three-network integration as a major strategy at the State Council level, IPTV has become a typical business of the three-network integration. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, as the competent authority, has also issued Document No. 344, and the management method of the IPTV license system has entered an era of institutional basis. (It is no longer like the early days when private enterprises could get licenses by relying on connections)

At this stage, IPTV development in various places has entered a rapid period. Regardless of whether it is based on the three-network integration documents or a series of documents such as No. 344 and No. 43, there is no policy issue in developing IPTV in various places. The main issue is whether it is compliant.

The so-called compliance means that all regions need to manage in accordance with the two-level broadcast control structure formulated by the General Administration, limit the authority of telecom operators, reconcile the monopoly of BesTV, and help local TV stations and CCTV to take the lead, so that CCTV can quickly establish management advantages over IPTV.

Therefore, in those years, the IPTV responsibilities of telecommunications and radio and television began to be clarified; BesTV began to divide users to local TV stations; but CCTV was the only one that was not supportive. Therefore, in 2013, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television approved Sichuan and Jiangsu, two regions with a large number of BesTV users, in order to support CCTV's entry and connect with local TV stations for development.

Therefore, under the guidance of the General Administration, CCTV and BesTV established a joint venture (Love TV) to reduce the resistance of CCTV replacing BesTV as the dominant broadcaster and control company as much as possible and to implement it in various places as soon as possible. However, the newly established Love TV is still sluggish. Apart from setting up a few branches in Yunnan, Henan and Zhejiang, it has basically made no achievements.

At this stage, the original competition between telecommunications and radio and television interests has turned into a power game within the radio and television system, between CCTV and BesTV, and between Aishang and local TV stations. Aishang’s weak market capabilities and relatively rigid execution have made it impossible to reach a win-win market cooperation with local secondary broadcast control, resulting in large-scale user development on the one hand and a license system on the other. The system exists but is not implemented. The market is ahead of regulation.

Phase 3: Strengthening the secondary architecture with the help of broadcast control acceptance

As a regional business, local secondary broadcast control has great authority in actual implementation and also bears the regulatory responsibility for local development. As local secondary broadcast control platforms and local telecommunications have achieved common interests in the development of IPTV, IPTV has developed even more rapidly. As long as local provincial stations recognize and participate, IPTV in various places can develop in compliance. The only thing that has not been implemented is the connection between the primary broadcast control and the secondary broadcast control.

Difficulty in implementation is the biggest problem encountered by the first and second level broadcast control mechanism formulated by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. Although the General Administration has provided support in many ways, AiShang has never been able to achieve a breakthrough in docking through market cooperation with local governments. Whether it is Tengchong or Dengfeng, the broadcast control parties are all in harmony on the surface, but they are doing their own things behind the scenes. Therefore, within a few years of its establishment, AiShang has already had three leaders. In particular, AiShang’s joint promotion of Yueme with Telecom has caused extreme dissatisfaction and resistance from local governments.

On the basis of the establishment of the IPTV secondary architecture, the acceptance and issuance of IPTV broadcast control licenses will be carried out, and the approval will be promoted in a post-approval manner. First, the platform will be built, users will be developed, the results will be tested, and acceptance will be carried out, which is closer to the acceptance effect. Of course, the issuance of licenses actually includes the painstaking efforts of the General Administration to solve the problem of the first-level broadcast control docking. The actual docking of the broadcast control architecture of Ai Shang + local TV stations is used as the premise of broadcast control acceptance, and this method is used to realize the real establishment of the second-level broadcast control architecture.

As a result, licenses were issued in Liaoning, Guangdong, Chongqing, and Hunan. However, the six-year gap between the issuance of No. 344 and the first formal secondary broadcast control license is not normal. The root cause of the current IPTV market and system divergence in time is the weakness of the primary platform market and the poor execution of platform docking.

Therefore, the current situation of IPTV users first and licenses later is due to the following reasons: 1. The market and supervision are not synchronized due to many historical reasons; 2. Poor connection leads to policy changes; 3. Under the premise of legal IPTV business, on the basis of clear first and second level broadcast control system, the second level broadcast control license is issued after approval. Therefore, the saying that IPTV users are naked is not very rigorous.

4 Other licenses for IPTV

In addition to the broadcast control license, IPTV also has two other licenses, namely the national content service license and the IPTV transmission license.

There are only two national content service licenses left, namely CCTV and Shanghai TV (BesTV)

There are currently two IPTV transmission licenses, one for China Telecom, which is mainly used in the southern region, and one for China Unicom, which is mainly used in the northern region.

China Mobile has been applying for it, but because it has gone too far in the OTT business, the difficulty of rectification is too great, and it may form a misunderstanding with the existing IPTV. Therefore, the General Administration has not issued a transmission license for China Mobile. At present, in addition to the rectification of various regions of China Mobile, the issuance of China Mobile's transmission license may be a special standard.

5. Regarding the applicant and operator of the broadcast control license

As always, all qualifications related to media communication are given priority to units within the system, and IPTV broadcast control licenses are no exception. The only entities that can apply for licenses are and can only be TV stations.

However, in actual operation, the TV station will hand over the integrated broadcast control rights to the new media department within the station, or to a specially established new media company for operation. Thus, the difference between the license application entity and the operating entity is formed.

For example, BesTV is the operating company of IPTV, and the applicant for the license is Shanghai Television.

RuaiShangTV is the operating entity of the first-level broadcast control, and the owner of the license is China Central Television.

For example, the license owner in Beijing is Beijing Radio and Television Station, but the operating entity is Beijing New Media Group.

Of course, the separation of entities also aims at capital demands, because TV stations, as mouthpieces, are not allowed to go public, while the operating entity is a market-oriented mechanism, which can introduce external capital and achieve listing, such as BesTV. With the expansion of IPTV user scale and the clarification of business model, new media companies with IPTV as their main business are also actively moving towards listing. In 2016, several companies have been listed, and this trend will accelerate in 2017.

summary:

In 2016, there were nearly 100 million IPTV users in China. In 2017, Streaming Media Network predicts that the number of IPTV users may exceed 150 million (including IPTV users after mobile compliance). There is no doubt that IPTV has become the main channel for television broadcasting in China.

The development of IPTV in the past 12 years has proved that the icing on the cake of policies will definitely give the industry better market performance. With the trend of the integration of new media and traditional media, IPTV will be more promising in the future as long as it can continue to innovate in technology, products, business and operations.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.