Yesterday's Financial Times has a story about Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone paying another visit to China, and his company's progress in prising open the broadcasting market here.

This week, Mr Redstone will touch down [in China] for another week of high-level meetings with government officials, interspersed with formal dinners and media appearances. His age and power make for a potent combination in the People's Republic, opening doors that might have remained closed to lower-ranked executives. Mr Redstone is fond of telling how, on aprevious trip, Jiang Zemin - then China's president - made a five-hour train journey to meet Mr Redstone and his entourage ...

That is not to say Mr Redstone's efforts have gone unrewarded. Last year, the lobbying paid off when MTV, the youth television subsidiary that is Viacom's main offshoot in China, was granted the right to broadcast a 24-hour channel in the southern province of Guangdong. Until then, MTV had been limited to broadcasting to hotels and compounds frequented by foreigners or supplying programming to China Central Television, the state-owned broadcaster ...

The aim of Mr Redstone's current trip is to persuade officials to give MTV the right to serve China's largest cities.

The whole article is here. There's some information about Viacom's outdoor advertising plans for China on Danwei here.