SMG Documentary Channel goes national

New productions to be shown include a nature documentary series about Tibet.

Shanghai Media Group announced that its local Documentary Channel will be broadcast nationwide from June 16. It will become China\'s second documentary channel targeting a national audience after CCTV 9.

"It is a significant move to expand our audience and gather documentary filmmaking and marketing talents together on this wider platform," said Gan Chao, director of the Documentary Channel.

Both domestic and foreign documentary series and films will be aired once SMG\'s national broadcast starts. It will cover a wide range of genres such as history, nature and the humanities and society. The channel produced 760 hours of programming last year.

New productions to be shown include a nature documentary series about Tibet, the historical documentary film Maritime Silk Road, and a film about Chinese food culture.
 
Dragon TV will launch a strategic collaboration with Alibaba Group for content development, marketing and E-commerce. The content of Dragon TV reality shows are expected to inspire new video games and interactive software and apps for both Internet and cell phones.

Alibaba also presented new financial vehicles for filmmaking investment. They will give netizens the opportunity for financial gain by investing in promising Chinese film and TV projects. Investors will also have the chance to be invited to their movies\' premiere and props\' auction.
With China\'s number of Internet users reaching 618 million in 2013, this year\'s TV festival also acknowledges the strong ambitions and efforts of video-sharing websites to produce more creative online series of their own.

Officials from V.qq.com said they will offer around 500 episodes of online series in categories of comedy, suspense and romance this year. Among them are season one of Death Notify, a suspense thriller about a mysterious serial murder case, and V Love, a romantic series set to the backdrop of the digital era.

Art Channel yesterday also presented awards for outstanding one-minute videos. The competition, a program of the TV festival, attracted 800 entries from around the world this year, all made by talented young filmmakers. The channel said the award-winning videos will be displayed during an exhibition at the Power Station of Art.

The 20th Shanghai TV Festival runs from June 9 to 13.