China's fragmented cable TV industry was consolidated as the country's first national cable TV provider, Unified National Network (UNN), was established on Thursday.

UNN was registered by China Broadcasting Network Corp. Ltd. (CBN) and 45 other shareholders, including e-commerce giant Alibaba and regional cable TV operators, with 101.2 billion yuan (14.9 billion U.S. dollars) of capital.

The majority owner is CBN, which was formed six years ago to integrate many of China's regional cable TV companies.

The establishment of UNN has been under the spotlight for a while. According to Caixin, multiple broadcast-related government agencies were given an extra push in February to create the new company that would finally consolidate cable TV operators into a single company that would also offer 5G services.

According to the plan, UNN's business will cover nationwide cable network construction and operation and offer a wide range of services from cable TV to 5G wireless internet service.

(Cover: VCG)