Global Producers Check out Festival\'s Market for China Buyers

Global firms including UK-based BBC and ITV Studios, Japan\'s NHK, showed off their latest productions in the 19th Shanghai TV Festival\'s International Film & TV Market yesterday.

They came to the festival to scout for business in the domestic market, including traditional broadcasting and new media distribution such as video websites.

UK-based BBC Worldwide announced its deal with Shanghai-based BesTV New Media, China\'s largest new media company, to launch a CBeebies-branded block on its multi-screen platform.

The deal will make the BBC\'s kids\'content, like Teletubbies and Sarah & Duck, available as a VOD (video-on-demand) service to BesTV\'s more than 20 million subscribers in China.

Another UK firm, ITV, also sought opportunities to distribute its documentary films to the domestic market through both traditional broadcasting and Internet streaming.

"We have seen huge potential market in the Chinese mainland because we have the same language and culture background," said Wang Weijiang, director of the Taiwan China Visual and Audio Production Association. Twenty-five Taiwan China firms, compared with 20 last year, attended the exhibition yesterday.

NHK has talked with CCTV, SMG and top Chinese online video websites about broadcasting new documentary films in China, such as a wild life series and Legend of the Deep which features creatures in deep seas like giant squids and sharks.

The company is seeking opportunities to cooperate with local firms for online streaming services but has to solve music copyright problems for products which can\'t be used outside the Japanese market, according to NHK.