New Zealand’s ‘Largest’ Chinese Media Firm Goes Bust, Again
Udumbara
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The New Zealand operator of three Chinese-language radio stations and an online news site—which it claimed made it the largest foreign-language outlet in the country—has been put into receivership by its largest shareholder, Fu-nu Tsai.
Best News Entertainment operates three stations, Chinese Voice, Love FM, and AM936, as well as a digital news outlet called NZ936, plus a free-to-air TV channel, TV32, which broadcasts original programming, news, and state programming from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.
Companies Office records show Tsai owns 60 percent of Best News Entertainment, with its sole director, Auckland-based Lynn Li Mei Chang, controlling the remaining 40 percent.
Steven Khov and Kieran Jones of insolvency firm Khov Jones were appointed as receivers under a general security deed from March 2021, when Tsai purchased its assets out of the liquidation of the World TV group of companies.
Best News Entertainment’s businesses are still operating, with its YouTube channel—which has 378,000 subscribers—running live streams and NZ936 continuing to publish breaking news in Mandarin. The receivers have said it will continue to trade until they have assessed all the options.
It appears that its general manager, Jody Chang, may intend to buy some of the assets. On May 5, 2025, he registered AM936 Limited, of which he is the sole shareholder and director.
2nd Time It’s Failed
The business was launched in 2000 under different ownership, then led by controversial figure Henry Ho. A boardroom coup occurred in 2016, when a group of shareholders led by Ho took control of the company.Ho was later released from jail after being convicted of fraud and concerning the financing of about $8.8 million from ANZ. At the time he took control of the business, then known as World TV, he also acquired capacity for up to 10 additional free-to-air nationwide channels.
When other shareholders regained control a year later, World TV Managing Director Jody Chang said it had accumulated millions of dollars of debt, which Tsai covered with loans. By the end of the liquidation in October 2023, it had repaid her $1.6 million, $180,000 less than what she was owed.
At its height, World TV ran 10 premium subscriber channels for Asian viewers on the Sky TV platform and two free channels on Freeview, CTV8 and TV9. WTV’s Sky channels included seven in Chinese languages, two in Korean, and one in Japanese. It also briefly operated an English-language channel, Panda TV, which shut down in October 2021.
World TV went into receivership that year, with Grant Thornton, the receivers, citing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on advertising revenues and the effect of unspecified fraud.
Further, despite its media kit for potential advertisers on its website claiming the company had a market share in excess of 90 percent of the Chinese television audience in New Zealand, it also revealed only 56,800 members of the Chinese community tuned into TV28, and Chinese Voice and Love FM.
The business reportedly owed Tsai $1.78 million as a secured creditor, along with $212,000 to the Inland Revenue Department and $234,000 for GST, and an additional $1.4 million to unsecured creditors, including electricity, water, and other supply companies.
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