Foreign TV broadcaster launches TV stations in Malaysia, is it illegal on DVB-T2?

In many countries, including Malaysia, there are a lot of foreign broadcasters launch their TV stations. There are legal when a foreign broadcaster such as MTV, Sony TV, Fox TV to launch their TV station via pay TV or satellite TV. As satellite TV or cable TV company is holding Content Applications Service Provider (CASP) license.

What if a foreign broadcaster company launches its TV station on digital terrestrial television in Malaysia, basically foreign broadcaster is prohibited to launch TV station on Malaysia terrestrial television, regardless analog or digital due to broadcast regulations by MCMC.

To launch foreign TV station in Malaysia, the broadcaster shall joint venture with local company. I give an example, if China Central Television CCTV wants to launch their selected stations in Malaysia via DVB-T2 digital terrestrial television as free-to-air TV, CCTV cannot directly launch their stations in Malaysia because of:

- Original version of CCTV advertisements may not fit local requirements.
- Not all CCTV channels can be broadcasted in Malaysia due to copyright infringement, such as CCTV-6 (Movies), CCTV-8 (Drama), CCTV-15 (Music).

If CCTV wants to launch its channel in Malaysia, CCTV shall joint venture with Malaysia broadcasters. Therefore, both can get profit, but with the joint venture exercise, Malaysia broadcasters only manage to relay CCTV, just CCTV advertisements will be replaced by local ones. For the operation costs, CCTV needs to pay the fees to Malaysia local broadcaster, then local broadcasters pay the transmission to MYTV.

CCTV>Malaysia broadcaster company>MYTV>TM

If CCTV directly broadcast CCTV-13 news channel in Malaysia without JV, some of product advertisement on CCTV-13 may not be available in Malaysia markets. For example, Haval H6 commercial on CCTV-13. Haval H6 is a mid-size SUV, where is not available in Malaysia market. If CCTV-13 advertises Haval H6 SUV on Malaysia DTTV, one of viewer says that Haval H6 looks nice, he decides to buy Haval H6 in Malaysia, but problem is Haval Malaysia authorized sales dealer Go Auto never sells H6 in Malaysia. So, he is not able to buy his favorite H6..Next, where will he buy? Impossible a Malaysia viewer goes to China to buy Haval H6 and bring back to Malaysia after watching the advertisement on CCTV-13 in Malaysia, because Haval H6 is left hand drive car.

It is important to censor all foreign advertisements of foreign channel when launches in a country. This can avoid misleading to the viewers. For example, CCTV-4 on Astro CH334, its China advertisements are replaced by local advertisement. 

Another example, Asia Television Limited (ATV) was closed down of its free-to-air channel in Hong Kong since April 2016, but ATV returns to broadcast via OTT (Over The Top) platform, it will become pay TV after April 2018. At the same time, ATV joint venture with Green Packet Berhad. Moreover, ATV and Green Packet Berhad will collaborate to launch three free-to-air terrestrial stations in Malaysia, such as Chinese shopping channel, Chinese general entertainment channel and Chinese movie channel.

Actually ATV cannot launch on Malaysia DTTV as ATV is not Malaysia broadcaster. So, ATV shall joint venture with Malaysia company in order to reach Malaysia viewers.