Asia Pacific Vision (APV) is a provider of news, factual and corporate television content across the

Asia Pacific Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

Region. The company was founded by Mark Erder and Adrian Brown in September 1991, and incorporated in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

in early 1992. Brown is a British reporter and Erder is an American

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

filmmaker.

History

APV started as a supplier of news reports to international broadcasters that did not have adequate resources in

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. Thus, it addressed a news coverage gap in that area. It soon built relationships with client broadcasters in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. Its earliest clients included

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

, ABC America, Sky,

Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...

, and the major Australian broadcasters TCN 9, Channel 7 and Channel 10. Mark Erder and Adrian Brown (Journalist) quickly recognized the importance of retaining all rights to their stories, a condition that enabled them to resell the same content to non-competing clients in other geographical markets. As the date for the Hong Kong Handover approached, new opportunities emerged for APV to expand its production services and to offer satellite uplink and outside broadcast services. Later, APV. and the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

entered into a documentary co-production deal. With the decision to pursue further documentary projects and program development, the company split its business into two divisions; APV Broadcast Services, that focused on the original news-focused services and APV Programming Division, that dealt with documentary and feature programming. While news and

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

production remained APV's core business, by 1993, the company had begun to attract corporate clients as well. With demand from corporate clients steadily increasing, the APV Corporate Services division was established to focus on the production of video news releases ''(VNR), marketing videos'', internal training videos and customized media training, for both PR agencies and direct clients.

Present Status

APV currently delivers documentary programming to

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

, AETN and other broadcasters. In addition, it supplies commissioned content to major corporations across the Asia Pacific region including

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc ( zh, t_hk=滙豐; initialism from its founding member The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) is a British universal bank and financial services group headquartered in London, England, with historical and business li ...

, Cathay Pacific Airlines, Swire Pacific Ltd, ''Shangri-La Hotels'', Alibaba, UBS, Prudential and several others. Adapting to the changing economic and news climates of

, today APV. is almost purely focused on corporate work and

Branded content Branded content (also known as branded entertainment) is a type of entertainment product made or otherwise funded by an advertiser. They are designed to build awareness for a particular brand by presenting content that reflects its values and image ...

with producers specializing in the financial, ''hospitality'', property and auction industries.

Highlights

In 1992, APV entered a five-year production contract with the

that led to a five-part series documentary, "The Last Governor". Later (in 1999) The BBC and APV entered into a co-production deal to produce another documentary project, a history of foreign correspondents in Asia entitled "Of All The Gin Joints". By 1997, APV hired more than 120 employees., and had been commissioned by 20 broadcasters from around the world, to cover the end of colonial rule in

. APV provided

video production Video production is the process of producing video content. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with video recorded either as analog signals on videotape, digitally in video tape or as computer files stored on optical discs, hard drives, SSDs, ...

services and local expertise to networks from

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and the United States, in that period. This led to the establishment of the company’s APV Operations Services division, that specialized in providing outside broadcast,

uplink In a telecommunications network, a link is a communication channel that connects two or more devices for the purpose of data transmission. The link may be a dedicated physical link or a virtual circuit that uses one or more physical links or shar ...

, and external facilities services. In 2002, the performance of this division led to the formation of a joint venture focused specifically on providing satellite news gathering services and APV Link, based in

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

. This JV only lasted a few years The company’s performance in the corporate and broadcast markets have led many clients to seek APV’s guidance and production for the placement of their Branded Content. Both ''Hysan'' and ''The Grand Lisboa'' made corporate films with the intention of having them broadcast. The most successful placements were early productions for the Eastman Company which produced a half-hour show for placement on Chinese TV and for the US Department of Commerce which produced multi-part series for both the India and China markets, focusing on the benefits of a graduate education in the US. The most successful of these was a four-part series sponsored by Shangri-La Hotels and starring

Zhang Ziyi Zhang Ziyi (; ; born 9 February 1979), sometimes credited Ziyi Zhang, is a Chinese actress, known for playing independent and strong-willed characters. Born and raised in Beijing, Zhang was admitted to the Central Academy of Drama in 1996. Th ...

. This was placed on NGCI and various in-flight entertainment channels for the CX and Singapore airlines APV. has played an instrumental role in the launching of the CNN Bureau in Hong Kong, and the Asian launches of Asia Wall Street Journal TV, ABN, CNBC and Fox.

References

{{Authority control Video production companies Documentary film production companies Mass media companies of Hong Kong