The number of the subscribers to China's first digital pay-TV network, founded only half a year ago, has exceeded 100,000, the network said.

"Our network has now taken up some 95 percent of China's digital pay-TV market share," claimed the China Digital TV Media Inc. Ltd. (CDM) in a press release on its official website www.tv.cn.

"This signifies that the digital pay-TV is becoming a new entertainment option and even a new fashion for the Chinese urban audience," it said.

China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) greenlighted the digital pay-TV broadcast by five networks last year, with CDM being the first one to launch the service as of Aug. 9, 2004.

"Within only five months since last September, the number of the CDM's clients has grown rapidly to more than 100,000, and our program providers are already seeing profits," noted the news release.

It also said the CDM had so far signed service contracts with more than 90 cable TV networks across the country with a total of 63.07 million subscribers, among whom some 490,000 are set-top box users.

The CDM network now runs 17 digital pay-TV channels, offering a wide range of programs including movies, music, sports, shopping, education, TV guide and even computer games.

"In 2005 we plan to open a dozen more special channels to cater to the audience's different tastes," network sources said.

Currently an overwhelming majority of the urban TV viewers in China are subscribers of the cable TV, which offers mixed programs from 30 to 70 analog TV channels run by the Beijing-based China Central Television (CCTV) and local satellite TV at a monthly charge of 2 to 3 US dollars.

The CDM network charges 1 to 1.2 dollars a month for all of its digital channels, whose programs have a better quality than the analog ones in both picture and sound.

Experts say it will still take time for most of the Chinese TV audience to get used to paying for any specific programs they want to see.