Learning from Overseas Market

 A demonstration of Audience and Advertising Value of Documentary Programmes attracted a lot of attention during yesterday\'s Magnolia Forum. Seminars Part 3 of Magnolia Forum was held at the Friendship Hall, Shanghai Exhibition Centre. Ying Qiming, Director, Documentary Channel, SMG，and Bernard Macleod, Asia-Pacific senior consultant, Fremantle Media Enterprise, and Zhou Bing, Director, special programmes of Central Public Documentary Film Studio, General director, National Palace Museum, Dunhuang, and Zheng Weidong, Deputy managing director, CSM Media Research, and Zheng Xianglin, CEO of Optimedia, China and CEO of Zenith Optimedia, Guangzhou, China, attended the meeting and shared their views at yesterday\'s Magnolia Forum.

Documentaries have always been an important part of television programming.  Compared to entertainment programmes and TV dramas, documentaries are aimed at audiences with high educational backgrounds and strong consumption capacity.  Advertisers abroad have always paid great attention to documentaries. But in China these marketing and advertising advantages are often overlooked. The seminar discussed the appropriate advertising targets and market value of documentaries, and considered suggestions from issuers, broadcasters and advertising companies.

Ying Qiming, Director, Documentary Channel, SMG, delivered a speech about the Current Situation and Prospect of the Columnization of TV Documentaries.  “Based on our past experiences, we\'ve concluded that to know audence better than your competitors is essential for the success of a documentary channel，”said Ying. 

As a documentary director for over 10 years, Zhou Bing, director of special programmes of Central Public Documentary Film Studio， also mentioned that Chinese documentaries needed to dig deeper into the events and improve their story-telling art to attract more fans.

Zheng Weidong, Deputy managing director, CSM Media Research, said: "Documentary is gaining popularity among the audience by telling true and touching stories. However, we can not ignore the fact that the ratings of Chinese documentary TV programs are low although more and more domestic documentaries with awards at international contests."