China has barred local newspapers from publicly issuing shares following a corruption scandal last year at IPO pioneer Beijing Youth Daily, according to the sector’s top regulator.

However, the government was “encouraging” book publishing companies to list shares on stock markets in mainland China and Hong Kong, said Long Xinmin, minister at the press and publishing administration.

Beijing’s decision to ban newspaper listings, while approving them for publishing and distribution companies, reflects officials’ attempts to balance commercial development of the media sector without losing political control.[Full Text]

© Mo Ming for China Digital Times (CDT), 2006. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing youth daily, IPO, media censorship, media reform
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As China’s National Day approaches, just when holiday cheer should be in the air, Beijing Youth Daily employees are anything but cheerful. Since June, six of their managers have been detained for involvement in economic crimes, including two vice-presidents and a director of advertising.

Zheng Yijun, vice president of Beijing Media (Hong Kong Stock Exchange: 1000), the Hong Kong-listed arm of Beijing Youth Daily, was detained by prosecutors with Beijing’s Dongcheng District Procuratorate amid an advertising department meeting at Beijing Media on July 9.

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Post tags: Beijing youth daily, media corruption
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Beijing Media, the first Chinese state-owned media company to sell shares to the public, said two of its vice presidents and four other employees have been detained in Beijing.

Advertising department head Yu Dagong and two of his subordinates were being held on suspicion of bribery while another employee of the department and Vice Presidents Zheng Yijun and Niu Ming were detained for unspecified reasons, Beijing Media said in a statement late on Monday.

All six have been suspended and the company planned to conduct its own investigation and assess any financial impact, the statement said.

Beijing Media is the advertising arm for the Beijing Youth Daily, the Chinese capital’s second biggest-selling newspaper.

See also “Arrests maul Beijing Media” from the Standard.

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“The founders of the Beijing Youth Daily would not have believed it, but their paper — the mouthpiece of the Communist youth league — is about to be the first Chinese newspaper to be listed on an international stock market.

As part of a government plan to reconcile domestic propaganda with global capitalist profit, China’s second biggest daily says it will issue shares on the Hong Kong bourse to finance a modernization and expansion program. Reflecting the political sensitivities of this latest step toward opening up one of China’s last closed markets, the newspaper has declined to reveal when the offering will be made or how much it will be worth. ”

Read the whole article here.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2004. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing youth daily, Rupert Murdoch
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