Hunan TV aims for the world

While Meteor Shower 2 is currently being filmed in Xiamen, it will air across the strait in Taiwan and faraway in Korea.

While Meteor Shower 2 is currently being filmed in Xiamen, it will air across the strait in Taiwan and faraway in Korea.

What do you do when you have made China happy? You bring the happiness to the globe.

A year ago, we wrote an article on how provincial media companies like Hunan TV were beginning to break loose the centralization of Chinese television based on CCTV (appropriately named the Central Chinese TV). “Be Happy, Be Chinese” seems to no longer be enough for Hunan Broadcasting Systems (GBS) as it announces several major developments that will increase the company’s global connections. Among these are the serious push for Hunan TV World, collaborations with international companies and the exporting of its shows to foreign stations.

Selling Meteor Shower and more overseas

Hunan TV has already begun to sell many of its dramas outside mainland to gain greater influence. Most recently, Hunan TV’s “Let’s Watch Meteor Shower Together” will be aired both in Korea and Taiwan soon. While the Korean channel is a fairly small cable catered to Chinese dramas, the Taiwanese station broadcasting Meteor Shower will be SETTV, one of the biggest Taiwanese stations. It’s probably too much to hope for any big waves to come by either of the broadcastings, but since the success of Super Girls, GBS has shown in recent years that it is through gradual and steady planning rather than one-hit wonders that it succeeds. (more…)

New entertainment company in charge of Huan Zhu Ge Ge remake

aecfd244efb84062500ffe0f

News spread fast last week that Long Danni, CEO of eeMedia would be leaving the company for Shanda entertainment. This gave us all a series of heart attacks, because eeMedia was chaotic until she was hired last year and took over, and in the past year she’s accomplished so much by overseeing eeMedia’s first drama production, Meteor Shower, making Supergirls a nationwide hit, organizing the music department, etc. We couldn’t believe that a woman with such a strong vision would just leave the foundation she had worked hard to create.

And she didn’t. Well,  not technically. Instead the real story behind the news points to an alliance that will only stretch the boundaries of eeMedia and Hunan TV further, not topple the company.

Shanda Interactive (Shanda) and Hunan Broadcasting Systems (Hunan) held a press conference today announcing the formation of a new entertainment company. The new company, Shengshi (Glorious Times) Film and TV, with an initial investment of 600million yuan, will be a Shanda-Hunan joint venture focused on film and drama productions as well as artist management.

(more…)