TV Drama Production Levels Down/Repeats Up As Investors Get Cold Feet

BEIJING & SHANGHAI --- With economic uncertainties scaring off the high flying non-industry investors of earlier years, reports from leading production bases in China show that investment in, and production of, TV dramas is well down on 1998. 

According to information gathered by CMM correspondents, Beijing TV Institute planned to produce 900 episodes of TV series in 1998. But this year, only 150 episodes were declared. Meanwhile, the Beijing TV Center, which has an annual capacity for 300 episodes, only plans to produce 100 this year. 

The same trend is evident at the more powerful China TV Drama Center. From a 260 episode plan last year, the Center is preparing to produce only 180 in 1999. Decreasing the quantity and guaranteeing the quality of key projects seems to be the preferred option among many other major producers. 

Meanwhile, more and more TV stations are turning to rerun dramas to maintain their positions in the ratings battles. The success of rerun dramas in many local markets has been welcomed by schedulers who complain that there is little alternative with few quality productions available and the prices for top productions skyrocketing. 

Indeed, the future of domestic TV drama distribution in China is coming to a climax with the intense bidding and political lobbying for the rights to broadcast the sequel to TV drama sensation "Huan Zhu Ge Ge". 

The first series set a new weekly average rating record of 50.53% when it was shown in Shanghai and has also fared well in many other markets. Now, terrestrial and cable TV stations are fighting to buy the rights of the sequel which (as drama watchers will know) has no guarantee of repeating that success over its whole run. 

The series is produced by Hunan TV which can only sit back and watch the price rise. 

1998 was also a turbulent year for co-production movies with the impact of the Asia crisis a direct one. At the beginning of last year, the film studios in China had planned to make 24 co-production movies, but by December 1998 only 6 such movies were finished.