Wednesday April 1, 04:57 AM
Fast-growing China TV's global business aims
By Audrey Stuart
CANNES (AFP) - China's booming TV sector is setting its sights on boosting business with the rest of the world from documentary to drama, but politics look likely to remain off the broadcast agenda.
Country of honour at this year's influential MIPTV audiovisual and digital entertainment show, which opened here Monday, China brought its largest ever delegation, including over 90 leading TV companies and 250 participant organizations.
"There is a great joining of forces," Paul Zilk, CEO of the show's organizers Reed MIDEM, told a packed conference hall.
China's potential market of over 1,000-million people has tantalized the world's audiovisual industries for years, and with advertising revenues falling and the economy gloomy, a foothold in China is more enticing than ever.
The country has already inked partnerships with over 200 broadcast organizations representing over 100 countries and regions. It has co-produced nearly 1,000 hours of TV dramas, documentaries and animation, which it says has "shortened the distances of different cultures and increased mutual understanding".
But China is also feeling the fall-out from the global crisis, according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) Vice Minister Tian Jin.
"We are all affected by the financial crisis and we all need more than ever to restore confidence and strengthen cooperation", he said.
Co-productions are top of the Chinese wish-list and there are signs that more business opportunities are opening up in this sector.
Beijing's Zhongbei TV Art Center did a deal with Russia's Ren TV at the last MIPTV and the two partners are now filming an action-packed TV drama series in Russia, China and France that will be ready for Autumn 2009, the Center's CEO, You Xiao Gang, told participants.
And two new ground-breaking deals were also announced here.
Germany and China have joined forces for the first time to produce an action film, "Mission Overseas" and Britain's Platinum Films will team up with China's Crystal Film to produce a new-style animation series.
Documentaries, however, look likely to remain the most popular co-production genre in the short term as language remains a major problem.
"The language barrier was and remains enormous," underlined BBC Natural History senior exec Brian Leith, who co-produced the acclaimed "Wild China" series, sold to 50 countries worldwide, with China's CCTV (China International Television Corporation).
Leith's team spent two years working on the project with a local partner.
Working closely with a completely integrated Chinese partner is crucial to the whole process as the country is vast, Leigh emphasised.
"But the project's success was also largely due to it being non-political and unlikely to create controversy, even it still hasn't been broadcast there and I don't know why," he told AFP.
The importance of China as a cultural and economic partner looks likely to fuel a need for factual shows in particular, the National Geographic Channel's US and International CEO David Haslingden told MIPTV.
"It is clear that there are an abundance of stories in China that are of interest to the whole world and sufficient talent in China to bring these to the air with some quality," Haslingden said, citing Confucius, The Long March and the Silk Road as some possible subjects.
"And it's not just a question of low (production) costs but taking the long term view," he added.
But achieving a better understanding of working methods between the Chinese industry and the rest of the world may be a long process as the art and pace of story-telling pivotal to programmes is hugely different in China.
Cultural differences though play a less important role in animation, which experts tip as a potential growth area with China.
And China at large represents a promising market, James Ross from Britain's ITV (LSE: ITV.L - news) told AFP. "Viewers who've had fewer viewing opportunities in the past now have a huge appetite for the medium," he said.
"Religion, sex and politics are still taboo subjects. But everything else is available," he said.
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