Focus on “China Format” and Promote Cultural Innovation

The next Shanghai TV Festival is soon to be held. With the further separation of program transmission from production in the whole market, Chinese format industry market enjoyed a boom over the past decade. In the spring of 2013, 127 Chinese institutes were attracted to attend the Cannes TV Festival. And the festival organizer especially held a symposium on the current situation and the trend of Chinese TV program formats. As a TV festival with the broadest global view within China, Shanghai TV Festival has scented the huge potential of the market. Meanwhile, it is aware that it shoulders the responsibility of promoting the originality of Chinese TV programs.

This year, to meet the need of the industry development, Shanghai TV Festival and 3C Media jointly created the first “China Format Day” as a warm-up session of the Festival that would last two days. It focuses on “China Format” and means to promote cultural innovation. It aims to accelerate the development of the originality of Chinese TV programs with the aid of market mechanism and to show the Chinese originality to the world.

The “China Format Day” is composed of such major sections as “Tendency of the International and Domestic Program Formats”, “Producer Master Class”, “Integration of TV Programs and New Media”, “TV Programs and New Technologies”, “Program Planning and Marketing” and “Format Contest”. Distinguished guests from home and abroad will bring the latest and the most valuable information of the format industry worldwide. They will also share the key to successful programs with the participants. These activities will be held in InterContinental Shanghai Puxi, lasting two days from June 7 to June 8.

From Formats Introduction to Chinese Originality

What is a format? According to Liu Xichen, Chairman of the Board and CEO of 3C Media, “A format is an advanced method of producing programs based on industrial production whose basis is market mechanism complying with the rules of fair competition and the survival of the fittest. At present, the marketization of Chinese TV industry is still at a low degree. And a mature industrialized production system has yet to be formed. Under such circumstances, it is very difficult to create a format of our own.”

Four Development Stages of Chinese Format Market:

The first stage (2006-2009): Only Hunan Television introduced formats, taking the lead in introducing international formats.

The second stage (2010-2011): "If You Are the One", "China’s Got Talent" and "Chinese Dream Show" were broadcast in succession, showing that content of the introduced formats resonated with Chinese audience.

The third stage (2012): "The Voice of China" appeared, making breakthroughs in business model of program formats and cooperation mechanisms via valuation adjustment of input and division of advertising revenue.

The fourth stage (2013-): Introduction of “I Am A Singer”, “Where Are We Going, Dad” and others as well as three international talent shows: “X Factor”, "American Idol" and “The Voice” in Chinese market indicates that Chinese TV industry really began to regard the introduction of formats as a way of improving the production level and industrialized production of programs.

Yang Lele, Marketing Director of Shanghai TV Festival said: “With the development of Chinese TV industry, China is becoming the new star of format industry after the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States and Israel, and will have more and more original programs. The next phenomenal program will surely appear in China and “China Format Day” will provide an international perspective for Chinese TV producers."

Gather International Elites Together and Accelerate Innovation

The “China Format Day” forum of Shanghai TV Festival is organized in accordance with international standards in aspects of guest invitation, content planning, site selection,

the number of forums and venue arrangements. International industry experts accepted invitation positively; besides Chinese top platforms, a lot of local channels also showed willingness to participate in the international dialogue. At the same time, sections of different issues were set up for this event: new media, advertising, investment and financing, etc.

There were 40 Chinese and foreign main speakers in the forum, including the international top ten format production and distribution companies, international leading industry research institutes, domestic top TV platforms and new media platform decision-makers, producers of well-known variety shows and key roles of the media industry chain, such as advertisers and investors. Nearly 30 forums covered content creation, technological innovation, operation decision-making, advertising, new media trends and investment and financing of programs. With quite professional guests and wide content, the forum reached an unprecedented height. Meanwhile, the forum also specially designed a lot of dialogues between Chinese and foreign guests.

Programming format brings great changes to the Chinese TV industry. Shanghai TV Festival and 3C Media will join hands to establish global and Chinese TV format industry benchmarks via this activity to help more people in the field to strengthen their awareness of formats, thus accelerating Chinese TV’s pace of entering into the creation format stage and showing the whole world Chinese original strength.