Program distributers and providers at this week's Shanghai Television Festival say an increasing number of TV series on modern Chinese society are getting distribution in the rest of the world. They are planning to cooperate to make Chinese dramas more popular abroad.
It's the seventh year that British program buyer James Ross has attended the Shanghai TV Festival market. He used to buy Chinese animation, but says TV series about modern Chinese society attracted him this year.
"You got some of them around the room here like this one 'Grown Up' and 'Mission Impossible Love.' These kinds of shows are very interesting. I think you guys are producing a lot of great content now," Ross said.
The popular Chinese TV series "A Beautiful Daughter-in-law Era" was dubbed to Swahili for broadcast in Africa last year. Shanghai Media Group's program distributer says it sold shows worth more than ten million yuan last year, up 12 percent from 2012.
"'Go! La La, Go!' was the best seller ever in our history last year. And it's still popular this year. Its success broke our traditional idea that only dramas about ancient China are popular. Since China is a fast developing country, the world wants to know more about what's happening in the country," said He Xiaolan, general manager of SMG Wings Media. "Apart from North America and Southeast Asia traditionally, the programs also went to Europe and Australia last year."
"Australians are very sophisticated audience, very worldy people, very conscious of the world and world affairs. So I think a lot of the cultural content in Chinese drama would be understood and received well by Australian audiences and of interest to the audiences," ABC Commercial Director Robert Patterson said.
To make the Chinese dramas more influential around the globe, organizers say this year's festival market is the biggest ever. More than 400 exhibitors are involved, nearly half of them from abroad.
"Our market is always dedicated to promoting more Chinese TV works to the international market. This year, the market also covers financing and legal services for exhibitors to offer a complete platform to program dealers. That will give foreign buyers more trust in their Chinese counterparts," STVF & SIFF President Fu Wenxia said.
"We will do some packages. Many overseas TV channels want to buy the TV content for a whole season. So we plan to work with them by selling several dramas together and offering a package," He from SMG Wings Media said.
Six Chinese media companies have already set up an alliance at the TV market to share client resources in order to export Chinese dramas to the rest of the world.