TVB plots new course for its digital future

Hong Kong - When TVB started putting its shows online six years ago, it was only the first step of a plan for make a global platform where Chinese-speaking audiences all around the world can get a taste of the shows.But last week, it signed an exclusive partnership with Youku Tudou for it to feed 2,500 hours of drama across the video sites and mobile platforms in the mainland.Yet, that viewership shouldn’t be on Youku or Tudou, but on what is supposed to be an expanded myTV platform, which, after six years of debut, still only operates within Hong Kong.A source close to Marketing said myTV was never intended to only serve the city; rather, it was supposed to take on a global approach as in-house online and mobile platforms that everyone around the world can access.But instead of taking the dive, TVB.com’s digital strategy seems to be following the steps of its television counterpart by outsourcing the operations to a local broadcaster instead of establishing its own global brand.In Canada, for example, TVB dramas are put on its local Chinese broadcaster Fairchild Television: SCTV9 in Vietnam; Wha Lai Toi in Malaysia and WorldTV in New Zealand, to name but a few.TVB couldn’t comment by the time of publication.