Festival forum tackles issue of Chinese TV dramas’ access to overseas markets

Festival forum tackles issue of Chinese TV dramas’ access to overseas markets

By Alex Miao

With the quality of Chinese domestic TV dramas constantly improving, the challenge of how to "break the circle" and improve sales to overseas markets has become a hot topic of discussion.

This issue of finding effective strategies so that audiences in different countries could better understand Chinese TV dramas was a central topic of the 29th Shanghai TV Festival Roundtable Forum on June 25.

Wang Qiao, vice president of New Classics Media, said that as Chinese domestic TV dramas are still in the initial stage of overseas market development, the industry should "let the people see them first” and assess their reactions. 

Zhong Weijiang, president of Focus Pictures, said in recent years, the overseas TV dramas broadcast in Japan were still predominantly American and Korean. 

“Although Chinese actors are beginning to be noticed by Japanese viewers, and the quality is getting higher, there is still a gap compared to American and Korean dramas, which have dominated the market for a long time," Zhong said.

Marianne Lee, VIU’s chief of content acquisition & development, noted that the quality of Chinese dramas “reached a terrifying height in the first few years, and Asian viewers have begun to show more interest” in them, particularly costume dramas.

Fu Wenjie, executive vice president of Xixi Pictures, agreed with other speakers and emphasized that "Chinese TV dramas need to focus more on resonance if they are to capture the overseas market more strongly."

In previous years, Chinese period costume dramas were generally the most popular in the international market. But this might be changing.

Marianne Lee cited data from the VIU platform which indicated that as the general quality of Chinese TV dramas continued to improve, overseas viewers were breaking away from traditional styles and accepting different themes such as urban and romance dramas. 

"Apart from the subject matter, Chinese actors like Sean Xiao and others are actually very popular in Japan," Zhong Weijiang said. 

"We held three events to promote ‘Where Dreams Begin’ and, even though the actors didn't show up but provided videos they’d recorded, we displayed props used in the show. The response was especially good, and the tickets were snapped up," Zhong added.

Zhong suggested a promotional strategy that could be used to support the content quality of Chinese TV dramas.

"Not only do we offer the TV dramas in other markets, but we also send out the artists and creative teams to interact with overseas audiences."

This proposal was immediately supported by all forum attendees, including Lien Trinh, content & channels director of VSTV / K.

"Audiences have high expectations for Chinese domestic dramas, and I hope this can be a two-way run," Lien Trinh said.