News titles like Xinhau and China Daily have dramatically increased their office space footprint and the number of employees they have in New York in recent years, and that trend is now widely expected to continue.
The Wall Street Journal reports that state-funded media companies, including several television businesses and magazine publishers, are being encouraged by their bosses back in China to increasingly participate in the discussion on key issues in American society.
There is a long way to go before Chinese media firms get close to matching the kind of revenues and the breadth of coverage offered by top US companies in the same sector. Still, their influence seems likely to increase markedly as the decade unfolds.
Developing their presence in North America will involve Chinese media groups taking up ever larger areas of office space in New York, which is being welcomed as good news for the city’s commercial property market in general.
One particularly interesting and high-profile indication that Chinese media groups are keen to expand in New York and across the US is the addition of a Xinhua News Agency billboard in the city’s iconic Times Square.
Greg Kraut from the real estate advisor Avison & Young told the WSJ that he expects the wave of media companies from China to the US to look like the trend that saw many of China’s biggest banks suddenly opening sizeable offices in Manhattan.
In related news, media and entertainment industry giant Time Warner recently revealed that it is considering moving away from its current headquarters at Columbus Circle in Manhattan to another, so far unspecified, area of office space in New York City.
Editor’s notes: As of June 2024, the Xinhua news agency was based at 1540 Broadway, Times Square, and China Daily rented office space at 1500 Broadway, Times Square in Manhattan.