Cut the Drama - An Industry in Crisis

Following the glut in poor quality TV dramas in 1997, when over 11,000 episodes  were completed and only 7,000 were shown on all channels, the 1998 national  quota for TV dramas was reduced by 20%.  

However, mainland reports show that (ahead of the Shanghai TV Festival in  November) as many as 3,000 of the planned 9,000 episodes have already been  rejected by broadcasters. Even more disturbing is that these latest rejects will join an estimated 10,000 hours of melodramatic failures already gathering  dust at various locations around the country.  

At the National Program Fair in Guangzhou in June, industry analysts even  predicted an imminent crisis in large budget period dramas, usually only  attempted by well established players. Over 2,300 episodes of 110 historical  drama series are slated for production and release this year with presentations  in Guangzhou revealing alarming duplication of major historical themes.  

TV dramas became an exotic investment play for the ranks of the new rich in the  mid-nineties. However, while a few of these star struck investors have made it  big, most have been left with very expensive home videos. 

A significant proportion of the annual quota is taken by broadcasters' own  in-house productions and increasingly by what CMM-I labels "out-house"  production companies. These are essentially independent production companies  with Chinese characteristics that endow them with the quality of not being  independent at all in the western sense of that word.  

As China Media Monitor reported in June, the biggest "out-house" production of  the year is the epic drama "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" which CCTV has purchased  for RMB 50 million from the Shanghai-listed Wuxi CCTV Production Base in which  it is the major shareholder. 

As for those re-investing their property, trading and unmentionable profits into television programmes, CMM-I predicts that up to 60% of non-professional  investors in TV dramas will lose money on their projects this year as their  series are shunned by broadcasters, advertisers and viewers. 

Despite the dangers, many productions go ahead without any real prospect of a  broadcast deal. In Shanghai, SCTV's Cable Film & Drama Channel reports receiving offers as low as RMB 5,000 for TV drama episodes whose owners have  long since given up hope of recouping their investment. This is in sharp  contrast to the RMB 70,000 that can be commanded by a top production.  

The situation is not much better over at terrestrial broadcasters Shanghai TV  and Oriental TV. Both stations already have embarrassingly extensive libraries  of un-broadcast and un-broadcastable dramas which has forced them into continual reviews of selection procedures.  

So hard is it to find high quality drama series that a completely new type of  smuggling has evolved to satisfy the demand. Drama smuggling rings are even now  stripping down dramas originating from Hong Kong and Taiwan and turning out  counterfeit versions which are grabbing primetime slots on local cable systems.  

By re-editing intros and end credits and perhaps adding a few key scenes, the  only problem for a skillful editor is downgrading the series enough to be  believable as a mainland production.  

Put bluntly, the situation is not healthy. Although SARFT efforts to create a  credible listings service for drama series, indicating their topic and the  current stage of production, may cut down on duplication, even national  registration is an immense task in a country of this size, with such an appetite for new programming and with so many flawed ideas for really brilliant  stories.