Shanghai Media Group (SMG) has its roots in Shanghai People’s Radio Station, launched on May 27, 1949, and Shanghai Television, which began broadcasting on October 1, 1958. Today, SMG stands as China’s leading provincial media organization and a state-owned cultural conglomerate, ranking among the World’s Top 500 media organizations. Its public-listed subsidiary, Oriental Pearl Group, has been one of China’s Top 30 Cultural Enterprises for 14 consecutive years.

 

SMG operates eight television channels, including Dragon TV and Yicai TV, and eight radio frequencies, including Radio Shanghai, as well as seven performing art groups and 17 cultural and tourism venues. SMG has also developed a host of leading digital platforms, including iSMG, Ajmide, KNews, and Yicai.

 

With a robust ecosystem spanning news and content production, technical services, smart media solutions, culture, tourism, performing arts, and copyright management, SMG has built a fully integrated cultural and media industry chain, maintaining a total asset worth RMB 60 billion.

 

Setting off on a new journey of systemic transformation of mainstream media, in alignment with Shanghai's strategic deployment to become a best practice ground for Xi Jinping's “Thought on Culture”, SMG has anchored its core strategies of "News First""Thrive on Culture"  "Deepening Integration" and “Gathering Talent”. Adhering to the value of "Distinctive and Exceptional" and with "ALL in AI" as primary focus, SMG is accelerating its efforts in intelligence, ultra-high-definition, and mobility while vigorously enhancing creativity, communication and business operations. It is dedicated to building a Digital and Intelligent Mainstream Media Group with international influence, technological innovation and industrial competitiveness.

 

This is SMG, where excellence unlocks the extraordinary!

 

 

News is the key mission of SMG. Focusing on key areas including political and current affairs, finance, technology and innovation, society and culture, urban lifestyle, and global communication, SMG’s news operations prioritize cosmopolitan news angels, connecting national and global news, combining legacy and new media articulation with 24/7 news production and airing. SMG has fostered a variety of well-established news brands, including: Dragon TV (Tune in to the World. Tune in to Dragon TV.), Radio Shanghai (Communicating uplifting power), Yicai (Professionalism Creates Value). Guided by a user-centric approach and internet-driven perspective, SMG is reshaping its media resource allocation and accelerating the development of all-media production, distribution, and evaluation systems, reinforcing the reach, guidance, influence and credibility of mainstream media.

 

iSMG: New Media, New Consumption, New Technology

As Shanghai's premium video platform, a gateway to urban lifestyle consumption, and a pioneer in AI innovation, iSMG is tapping into a new business model in terms of integrating top-notch contents with city services and membership benefits. By the end of 2025, iSMG had over 100 million registered users.

 

 

Ajmide: Audio Enriches Life

Building a leading platform for intelligent mobile radio listening, it currently offers approximately 900 live radio streams across China, with an average daily addition of 17,000 hours of audio content. Its integrated media ecosystem has reached a user base of 79 million.

 

 

KNews：On the Pulse of Our Time

By the end of 2025, KNews has attracted a cumulative user base of 19.76 million, with cross-platform accounts amassing a total following of 116 million. Our content reaches an average daily audience of 200 million across platforms, peaking at 500 million. In terms of both short video output and dissemination reach, we hold the leading position among provincial-level radio and television institutions in China.

 

 

Yicai: Professionalism Creates Value

Yicai is committed to building a new-type international financial media group that matches China's economic stature and Shanghai's positioning as a global city. With a daily output of over 2,000 financial news pieces and more than 2,000 annual live news broadcasts, our network brings together more than 1,000 influential financial experts and KOLs.

 

 

ShanghaiEye: Shanghai's Premier Video Window to the World

By consolidating SMG's premium resources, we are building a premier international video IP platform, featuring SMG’s flagship media brands: ShanghaiEye, Yicai Global, and Dragon TV International. By the end of 2025, ShanghaiEye's global communication matrix has achieved over 1.4 billion content views.

 

 

SMG places the "Thrive on culture" initiative at its key business, through redefining variety shows, overhauling production and investment mechanisms, rebuilding evaluation systems, and rejuvenating creative capabilities. Adhering to the principle that "Quality Content forges Real Future" and focusing on Shanghai as its central creative theme, SMG draws inspiration from the city's cultural heritage, transforms its urban spaces into dynamic stages, and expands exclusive contents based on stories of the city. With a focus on people’s perspectives, emotional resonance, humanity tension, and DNA of civilization, SMG's cultural contents showcase a metropolitan, youthful, and innovative spirit—forging a new "Shanghai-styled" aesthetic and producing cultural works and brands that embody both the city's cosmopolitan character and Chinese artistry.

 

 

Delivering Mainstream Values Through Quality Contents

SMG consistently produces innovative and top-end contents across genres of news, documentaries, films and TV dramas, variety shows, sports, social education, and animation. Since 2020, SMG has been awarded 34 China Journalism Awards (6 first prizes), 7 National Five Top Project Awards and multiple national broadcasting honors—16 China Radio and Television Awards, 10 China TV Art Star Awards, 9 China Flying Apsaras Awards, 5 China TV Golden Eagle Awards, 1 China Theatre Wenhua Awards, 2 China Film Golden Rooster Awards, and 4 Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Awards. Internationally, SMG has been recognized with 58 awards from prestigious competitions such as the Telly Awards, ABU Prizes, and Asian Television Awards. To date, the group has accumulated over 2,000 major domestic and international accolades.

 

By the end of 2025, its subsidiary, the Shanghai Audio-Video Archives, possessed a digital media collection totaling 1.5882 million hours of content. Specializing in program copyright trading, SMG Pictures and Wings Media distribute contents to over 300 Chinese TV stations, 20+ new media platforms, and reach viewers in more than 150 countries and regions. 

 

 

Empowering Better City Life Through Cultural Festivals and Events

Each year, SMG organizes or co-hosts over 60 major international festivals, exhibitions and conferences, including the China International Import Expo, World Artificial Intelligence Conference, May 5th Shopping Festival, Shanghai International Film and TV Festival, Shanghai International Arts Festival, and Shanghai Tourism Festival. SMG has also launched its own successful cultural IPs such as the International Light Festival, various outdoor music festivals, trendy sports festivals, and cartoon and game expos, which are widely acclaimed in industry and business circles, and hugely popular among visitors from China and abroad.

 

 

Boosting Urban Development Through Cultural Industries

Oriental Pearl New Media Co., Ltd.(OPG), the industrial and capital platform under SMG, focuses on two core sectors: smart broadcasting and cultural consumption. OPG strives to strengthen its key businesses in integrated media, 5G-based broadcasting, cultural tourism, and cultural property development, building an combined online-offline industrial ecosystem that serves over 100 million users. As of September 2025, its IPTV services reach more than 61 million households in China, while its internet TV users exceed 110 million.

 

OPG owns and operates numerous Shanghai’s iconic cultural landmarks, including the Oriental Pearl Tower, Mercedes-Benz Arena, Shanghai International Convention Center, and the Oriental Land. Furthermore, it is continually developing and managing multiple cultural industrial clusters such as the Oriental Media City, Oriental Pearl Triumph Center, Innovation Center, and Oriental Pearl Digital Film and Television Base.

 

 

SMG positioned "Deepening Integration" as its core driving force, pro-actively embracing the new wave of technological revolution. With an firm commitment to advancing "ALL in AI", SMG is accelerating its transition toward intelligence, ultra-high-definition(UHD), and mobility. Moreover, SMG is building a next-generation digital technology infrastructure for broadcasting and audiovisual services, powered by big data, cloud computing, UHD, artificial intelligence, and mobile internet, thereby forging new-quality productive forces of media.

 

 

Intelligence

Following a technology roadmap centered on IP-based, cloud-native, and AI-driven development, and leveraging both general-purpose large models and self-developed specialized AI agents, we are focused on building six core platforms: the Intelligent Middle Platform, Data Middle Platform, Content Production Middle Platform, Broadcast Control & Distribution Middle Platform, Smart Media Asset Middle Platform, and Network & Terminal Operations Middle Platform. These platforms collectively empower the entire media lifecycle—from programming, acquisition, editing, archiving, distribution, broadcasting, to evaluation—enabling a fully integrated, intelligent production, dissemination, and assessment system for omni-media operations.

 

SMG pioneered the Generative AI Media Convergence Innovation Studio and launched Scube, an integrated AIGC toolkit, significantly boosting news production efficiency. It also developed Xingyi, China’s first financial large model based on Deepseek, offering professional support for capital market analysis. Additionally, the AI-powered sports product InnoMotion delivers precise motion data visualization, showcased at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and the Archery World Cup 2025.

 

 

Ultra-High-Definition

In full implementation of the China (Shanghai) UHD Pioneer Action Plan, SMG is distinguished by its all-encompassing UHD ecosystem: overall technical system upgrade, UHD coverage across all program genres, multi-channel and multi-terminal reach, and a complete industrial chain.

 

SMG has established "Four Zones and One Platform": a UHD Converged Media Studio Zone, an Intelligent Broadcasting Zone, a Creative Production Zone, a Computing Power Zone, and an Open Service Platform (the Oriental Media City). Furthermore, SMG launched the nation’s first provincial-level UHD news studio.

 

Dragon TV has brilliantly launched its 4K Ultra HD channel, introducing four daily premium program strands with Fresh News Perspectives, Global Communication Insights, Shanghai-styled Documentaries, and Classics Reimagined. These efforts reinforce the “Watch 4K, Watch Dragon TV” brand slogan, highlighting the channel’s metropolitan, comprehensive, and international appeals.

 

 

Mobility

Adhering to a “Multi-Screen Synergy, TV-Online Integration” strategy, SMG strengthens coordinated development in media convergence. It is building a self-controlled “1+3” mobile internet matrix, which includes iSMG(a comprehensive video platform), Ajmide(a comprehensive audio platform), KNews (a digital news platform) and Yicai (a financial intelligent media platform). Through these platforms, SMG is showcasing new strengths in the digital media world.

 

 

SMG recognizes that its employees are its greatest assets and primary driver of success. Adhering to a people-oriented reform approach, SMG adapts to the demands of the converged media landscape and follows the principles of talent development. The Group is reforming its talent evaluation and incentive mechanisms, striving to build a media workforce that is passionate, creative, responsible, and committed to excellence. Since 2024, SMG professionals have received over 60 national and municipal-level talent awards. Notable achievements include winning Golden Voice Award for China's Broadcasting and Hosting for three consecutive years, nine employees recognized as National Leading Talents in the radio, television, and online audiovisual industry, and one recipient of the Plum Blossom Performance Award. Eighteen individuals were awarded the Shanghai Culture and Arts Award (accounting for one-fifth of the city’s total recipients).Moreover, three individuals have been awarded the Shanghai Changjiang & Taofen Award, and over ten have been honored the Oriental Talent Program, as Leading Talents, Top-notch Talents, and Young Talents.

 

 

Setting the Benchmark for Excellence

SMG has established a new value standard of " Distinctive and Exceptional" and a new competitive mechanism, evaluating talent, projects, and performance through the lens of excellence. Employees are encouraged to learn from the best, compete with the strongest, race with the fastest, and collaborate with the finest, constantly challenging their limits and forging a unique and irreplaceable core competitiveness. In 2025, SMG designated May 27th—the anniversary of the first broadcast of Radio Shanghai—as the SMG Excellence Day, inaugurating the SMG Excellence Awards to honor 51 individuals and 74 project teams. The aim is to ensure that talent thrives at SMG and SMG, in turn, shines because of its talent.

 

 

Implementing the Multi-media Talent Plan

SMG consolidates internal and external training resources to build a framework combining general knowledge training and thematic training, structured around the following core competencies: Professional Competitiveness, Business Management, Talent Development, and Innovation Capability. SMG has launched four key training series: Golden Voice, Creativity, Communication, and Business Management. Focusing on three dimensions—leadership, youth, and professional talent—SMG implements various programs: the Leading Talent Navigation Plan, the Rising Star Youth Nurturing Plan, and the Golden Voice Broadcasting and Hosting Plan.