In this reader media experts discuss the prospects and problems of program exchange between German and Chinese Broadcasters. They explain that program exchange is not the cockaigne one could assume with regard to the non-rivalry of media content and the huge Chinese TV market (more than 300 million TV households and an estimated 180,000 hours of weekly broadcast time across all TV platforms), but that many economic peculiarities of the media that only can be read in the footnotes of economic text books are highly relevant in practice. To trade TV programs with China thus requires a solid knowledge about the TV business in general, but also about the Chinese media order and the Chinese society, and the Chinese way of business.

"The presence of television is influencing the future of China in ways that no other technology or human agency can" (J. Lull). Given its' importance, both culturally and politically, the television industry is one of the most interesting industries in China. However, a quick review of regulations and market realities showed that there are virtually no foreign channels in the country and probably won’t be for a while; therefore the focus of this report is foreign television content entering China - and, to a slightly lesser degree, Chinese content in global markets. All video genres are discussed here, with news and current affairs programming being a special case. The first part of this report is a short introduction that includes the history of political influence and a review of existing regulations. After this overview, the industry and major players (namely CCTV, Xinhua, News Corp, Phoenix, Disney, Discovery, Viacom) are introduced and analyzed. Here, the issue of cultural imperialism, or Western media influence, is elaborated on. Then, the paper discusses the opportunities for international firms in the Chinese media market and the tension between Government control and market liberalisation. A compelling answer to the question of who will dominate the domestic market in ten years is developed. Finally, the impact of Chinese content on international markets will be assessed within the same timeframe. This is particularly interesting as media is not a traditional manufacturing industry and poses different challenges i.e. creative skills.

Television is a massive industry in China, yet fewer people are watching television screens. This ground-breaking study explores how television content is changing, how the Chinese government is responding to the challenges presented by digital media, and how businesses are brokering alliances in both traditional and new media sectors.

What media content attracts audiences across cultures and what does not? What does the cross-cultural audience demand depend on? The author takes a new approach to understanding cultural barriers to the success of foreign media content by analyzing the entry strategies of Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, News Corporation, and Bertelsmann with regard to China, India, and Japan in terms of their respective localization efforts. In-depth interviews with companies' representatives give an insight into how they view the need for locally-produced media in these countries. The author develops and employs the Lacuna and Universal Model that provides a new theoretical classification of reasons for the cross-cultural success and failure of media content, as well as the Vertical Barrier Chain that locates cultural barriers in the wider context of legal, political, and economic barriers to successful entry into foreign media markets.

Since the late 1990s, there has been a crucial and substantial transformation in China’s television system involving institutional, structural and regulatory changes. Unravelling the implications of these changes is vital for understanding the politics of Chinese media policy-making and regulation, and thus a comprehensive study of this history has never been more essential. This book studies the transformation of the policy and regulation of the Chinese television sector within a national political and economic context from 1996 to the present day. Taking a historical and sociological approach, it engages in the theoretical debates over the nature of the transformation of media in the authoritarian Chinese state; the implications of the ruling party’s political legitimacy and China’s central-local conflicts upon television policy-making and market structure; and the nature of the media modernisation process in a developing country. Its case studies include broadcasting systems in Shanghai and Guangdong, which demonstrate that varied polices and development strategies have been adopted by television stations, reflecting different local circumstances and needs. Arguing that rather than being a homogenous entity, China has demonstrated substantial local diversity and complex interactions between local, national and global media, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese media, politics and policy, and international communications.

This book explores the use of Blockchain and smart contract technologies to develop new ways to finance independent films and digital media worldwide. Using case studies of Alibaba and in-depth, on-set observation of a Sino-US coproduction, as well as research collected from urban China, Hong Kong, Europe, and the USA, Online Film Production in China Using Blockchain and Smart Contracts explores new digital platforms and what this means for the international production of creative works. This research assesses the change in media consciousness from young urban audiences, their emergence as a potential participative and creative community within dis-intermediated, decentralised and distributed crowdfunding and crowdsourcing models. This research proposes solutions on how these young emerging local creative talents can be identified and nurtured early on, particularly those who now produce creative and artistic audiovisual content whether these works are related to film, Virtual Reality (VR), video game, graphic novels, or music. Ultimately, a new media content finance and production platform implementing blockchain is proposed to bring transparency in the film sector and open doors to emerging artists in digital media. Appropriate for both professionals and academics in the film industry as well as computer science.

“The definitive work on Chinese television . . . A pioneering picture of CCTV and its crucial role in the contemporary Chinese political economy” (Robert W. McChesney, author of Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy). As China navigates the murky waters of a “third way” with liberal economic policies under a strict political regime, the surprising battleground for China’s future emerges in the country’s highest rated television network—China Central Television, or CCTV. With 16 internationally broadcast channels and over 1.2 billion viewers, CCTV is a powerhouse in conveying Chinese news and entertainment. The hybrid nature of the network has also transformed it into an unexpected site of discourse in a country that has little official space for negotiation. While CCTV programming is state sponsored—and censored—the popularity and profit of the station are determined by the people. And as the Chinese Communist Party seeks to exert its own voice on domestic and international affairs, the prospect of finding an amenable audience becomes increasingly paramount. Through a series of interviews with a fascinating cast of power players including a director of a special topic program that incited the 1989 student movement, current and past presidents of CCTV, and producers at the frontline of the network’s rapidly evolving role in Chinese culture, celebrated media analyst Ying Zhu unlocks a doorway to political power that has long been shrouded in mystery. “An indispensable guide to the Chinese media landscape.” —The New Inquiry “Up until Two Billion Eyes, the view of Chinese media has often been limited . . . Ying Zhu expands the periphery of our vision.” —Los Angeles Review of Books