Baidu Inc., which runs China’s leading search engine, and the Discovery Channel launched a Web site Tuesday to carry nature and science features, adding to rivalry in China’s competitive Internet market.
The site — discovery.baidu.com — will raise the Discovery Channel’s profile in China, which restricts foreign access to its vast television audience. It will give Baidu a new asset as it competes with U.S.-based search giant Google Inc.
“Discovery’s popularity in China will be increased,” said Xuyang Ren, Baidu’s vice president for marketing and business development, at a ceremony to launch the site. “Baidu’s knowledge platform will be strengthened, and this also will bring us more clicks.”
The site will carry translated material — mostly articles and photos, with some short videos — developed for Discovery Channel Web sites in the United States and Europe, said Tom Keaveney, the channel’s executive vice president for Asia. He said topics would include nature, science, wildlife, engineering and world culture.
The companies will share advertising and other revenue, Keaveney said.
“This is the first time we’ve done something on this scale with a partner,” he said.
The communist Beijing government’s media restrictions and the country’s rising incomes and fast-growing Internet market have led to a series of alliances between Chinese Web services and foreign suppliers of music, entertainment and other content.
China has the world’s biggest television audience, with more than 400 million viewers, but bars most of its cable systems from carrying foreign channels. The country has the biggest online population, with 338 million Web users.
Baidu and Google have added entertainment offerings to their search services to compete for traffic with popular Chinese sites that offer games, music and other content.
Baidu has about 60 percent of China’s search market, but No. 2 Google is gaining share, from about 20 percent in 2006 to about 30 percent this year,…