Cable operators to install monitoring OS

State body orders firms to put system on set-top boxes to supervise content

China's cable television operators will possibly lose more users after the State media supervising body ordered them to apply a unified operating system on their set-top boxes to monitor programs, analysts said Wednesday.

"The media supervisor could strictly review and monitor all the programs offered by the cable television operators, and cut off any downloading channels for streaming videos offered by third-party apps through its new rule," Jia Jinghua, a Shandong-based independent analyst, told the Global Times Wednesday.

The State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television said in an announcement Friday that cable television network operators must install an operating system called TV OS, which was co-developed by the Academy of Broadcasting Science under the media supervisor and several enterprises, on their set-top boxes.

The new operating system will play an important role in guaranteeing security for the triple networks - telecommunication network, broadcasting network and Internet network, the media supervisor said in the announcement.

The announcement came right after another move by the State media supervisor to monitor programs provided by online video providers.

The media supervisor ordered two Internet television set-top box providers - Zhejiang-based Wasu Media Holding and Shanghai-based BesTV - last month to stop providing support to its subscribers to download programs provided by video providers, which are suspected of containing forbidden content.

Jia noted that "the number of users for cable televisions will decline due to the media supervisor's regulation, in the face of competition from Internet set-top boxes."

Unlike the set-top boxes applied by the cable television operators, Internet set-top boxes could offer live TV programs and online videos as well as other functions that could be done on the Internet.

"The notice will be helpful for the supervisor to regulate the cable television market nationwide as currently different cities have diversified cable television networks," Pang Yiming, an analyst at Analysys International, a domestic Internet consultancy, told the Global Times Wednesday.

But "it will possibly impact user experience if the supervision is too much," Pang noted.

The cable television operators could improve their services by offering more high-quality programs to attract users, Pang suggested.

The Internet set-top boxes producers said they are "lucky" because they were not included in the media supervisor's announcement.

"We will continue R&D on our Mi Box, which runs on MIUI OS, an Android-based operating system," a PR representative from Xiaomi Technology Co told the Global Times Wednesday.

Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer, launched its Mi Box in 2013 to tap the smart television market.

A PR representative with letv.com, an online video provider, also told the Global Times Wednesday that the media supervisor's new requirement "will have limited impact on the development of our Internet set-top boxes, although the programs they offered should also be approved by the supervisor."

"We have adequate programs to attract the users," she noted.

The number of set-top boxes in China was expected to decline to a projected 130.8 million units at the end of 2013, down 12 percent from 148.6 million in 2012, global information consultancy IHS Inc estimated in a report in January this year.