Shanghai TV Festival In Focus
Five days of screenings, forums and networking kicked off on June 9 when the 14th Shanghai TV Festival (STVF) officially opened. The festival hosts the leading international TV awards on the mainland, the Magnolia Awards, plus an international TV industry forum, international film and TV market and the DocuChina program for young film-makers.
The festival this year promised to be bigger and better than ever, as 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the Shanghai television industry. This year’s event took on a bit of a somber mood with the opening ceremony being cancelled and other high profile events being postponed due to the Sichuan earthquake. At the same time there were a much greater number of industry workshops and conferences which featured international panels.
Representatives from around 330 TV-related organizations attended the Magnolia Awards ceremony on the last day of the festival and the DocuChina program received more than 200 applications from aspiring documentary makers across China (see the stories under Television and Film).
The EU Pavilion was the largest international group exhibition, with displays from German Films, Filmfee, Media Luna, SevenOne International, Telepool, Deutsche Welle, Eurodata, Granada International, NPO and Power. Zee TV was another foreign media company with a particularly prominent display.
"Every year we come to the Beijing and Shanghai TV festivals to get in touch with the Chinese media and our clients. Most of the programs we supply in China are family drama but we also want to explore the potential for programs based around fantasy and legend,” said a representative from Zee TV.
The crowds at the market were thinner than previous years, perhaps due to the stringent security measures that were introduced to prevent any incidents in the Olympic year. While most people went to the festival to network, rather than seal deals, they represented a diverse range of companies with a variety of long-term goals.
Major Chinese exhibitors included the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), China International TV Corporation (CITV) and Shanghai HaiRun Film & TV Production.
Some – like Beijing BTV Media and China Intercontinental Communication Center – were interested in exploring future opportunities for co-production. Angela Sun of Beijing JY Entertainment was interested in future rights barter deals for film and TV content. Others simply wanted to sell their products.
"We aim to sell our animation products, meet new clients and explore other development opportunities," said Zhong Sheng, general manager of MLS Investment.
With so much networking going on, it is hard to predict what concrete deals will arise from the TV market. Perhaps the best advice for participants came from James Ross of Granada International, our feature interviewee for June.
"We’re focusing on trying to increase our relationships, making people more aware of what we have and making sure what we have is suitable for the market. China's considered a big pot of money, but getting to that money is a different issue," he said.