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Newsroom at Phoenix Television Corporation at the Tai Po Industrial Estateon March 28, 2011. Photo: SCMP

Phoenix Media names Shanghai’s former city spokesman as CEO, splitting founder Liu’s job to improve corporate governance

  • Liu Changle will remain as chairman and managing director of the company that operates one of the biggest Chinese-language broadcast networks, said Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings)
  • Xu Wei, the incoming chief executive, is a former journalist who worked at the Shanghai bureau of the Financial Times before becoming the spokesman for the city’s government

Liu Changle, founder of Phoenix TV, has stepped down as chief executive officer while keeping his title as chairman of Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings), as one of the largest Chinese-language broadcasters restructures its management to enhance corporate governance.

The division of the two roles, effective February 26, is to “enhance corporate governance of the group … in compliance with the corporate governance code [of Hong Kong’s listing rules],” the board of Phoenix Media said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange (HLEX). “[He] will remain as the chairman of the board and an executive director.”

Phoenix Media, a privately owned broadcaster founded in 1996, appointed the Shanghai municipal government’s former spokesman Xu Wei as its chief executive on the same day. Xu, 54, is a former journalist who worked in the Shanghai bureau of the Financial Times. He was formerly the news director of Shanghai Eastern Radio, and was the general manager and editor-in-chief of Shanghai Oriental Satellite TV Media. He was spokesman for the organising committee of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo after leaving journalism.

The shake-up comes amid a challenging time for Hong Kong’s media companies, as they struggle to stay afloat amid the prolonged advertising slump caused by the city’s worst recession on record, brought on by a combination of the US-China trade war, almost a year of anti-government protests and now the coronavirus pandemic.

Image of Xu Wei. Photo: SCMP/Handout

Intensifying competition from an ever increasing amount of online news and commentary for advertising dollars have also posed extra challenges for traditional media firms in recent years.

Phoenix Media reported an interim operating loss of HK$438 million for the first half ended June 2020, after its 2019 loss widened more than 10-fold to HK$727.9 million, from HK$66.7 million in 2018. The company’s shares soared last week to a record HK$1.74 on February 17 amid speculation that a change in management was afoot. The stock fell 42 per cent over the subsequent seven trading days to HK$1 today.
Liu Changle, founder and chairman of Phoenix Media Investment (Holdings), at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai on November 22, 2012. Photo: SCMP

The company has also been weighed down financially by the collapse of its minority-held Phoenix Finance peer-to-peer lending unit, which involved more than 70,000 people with billions of yuan in losses, according to a HK01 report.

Phoenix Finance, in which Liu’s son-in-law He Xin owns 70.8 per cent, is described as a “strategic investment” by Phoenix TV, and is “deeply involved” in the area of digital wealth management, Phoenix Media said in its annual report.

Phoenix TV has amassed a global audience of 360 million viewers across six channels after a quarter of a century of operations in Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, Taiwan, Europe and the US, according to its website.

Liu, 69, worked for state-run China National Radio as a radio journalist during the 1980s before moving overseas to start his own business.

His successor Xu has a law degree from the international journalism department of Beijing University of International Relations, an MBA degree from the China-Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and a doctorate in management from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Xu will be entitled to an annual compensation of HK$2.8 million, according to Phoenix Media’s filing.

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