New Shanghai International channel is on the air

China Media News has been inundated with emails (and even some text messages) from people inquiring about the new English channel run by Shanghai Media Group.

After years of rumors, the channel is finally on the air. We haven't seen it yet ourselves, so we direct you to this review from Shanghai Eye:

Anyhow, bizarrely, and contrary to expectations, the channel seems to be doing rather well. It already has ads - from Mc Donalds, Unilever, etc... CCTV 9, China's English language face to the world, has yet to have an ad yet. In typical Shanghai fashion the station launched saying it was not planning to be a rival to CCTV, the state broadcaster. Obviously they had been thinking about Al Jazeera and CNN as their main rivals, and were confused why anyone was questioning them about something no-one had heard of.

The channel is called ICS, and also runs programs in Japanese. Ken Carroll, well-known from the popular ChinesePod programs, has his own talk show:

Others joining in the fun include many of the old favourites from SMG's stable of English presenters and commentators. But likely the wisest move the channel has made is the translation of fairly decent Chinese documentaries, and a bunch of TV shows usually shown on the sat channel 'discovery travel and living.' Flicking between his entirely kosher Filipino sat box and ICS Shanghai Eye found it hard to tell the difference.

We'll see how the channel develops, and what impact it has, if any, on CCTV 9.

Previously on China Media News:

• Reports indicate Shanghai Media Group may launch 24-hour all-English channel
• It's official: channel targeted at foreigners to launch in Shanghai January 1