As the earliest film festival initiated in China, STVF is the epitome of China’s TV industry, which boosted the growth of the Chinese TV market. With the theme, “Motivate the Whole World with Magnolias Blooming Resplendently”, the 22nd instalment of STVF will be held in June this year.

Last year, STVF welcomed over 7,000 industry participants within five days. One of its main events, the Film & TV Market, featured 300 domestic and international exhibitors, the largest ever in the event’s history, coming from 15 countries globally. Amongst the programmes for sale were TV dramas with war-theme, period drama, urban and family drama. More than 3,000 international buyers attended the highly acclaimed market where fruitful deals and networks were established.

An avid participant at Shanghai TV, ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS) will bring an array of titles to the Film & TV Market this year. The title they’re most excited to bring is Victoria (1 x 90’ + 7 x 60’), an ambitious new drama series following the early life of Queen Victoria. The costume drama that is expected to do well in the Chinese market is produced by Mammoth Screen, the producers of Poldark. Other costume drama like Mr Selfridge has done extremely well in the Chinese market and ITVS believes Victoria will be the next big hit.

According to ITVS’ Hyeonza Hong, SVP Sales for Asia, “We have already received great response from our Chinese clients for the following new titles at MIPTV: Fierce, Drive (format), and It’s Not Rocket Science (both as format and finished show). Fierce (6 x 60’) is a factual series following TV naturalist Steve Backshall as he seeks out the world’s fiercest animals. Entertainment format Drive sees eight celebrities compete in a series of action-packed motor racing challenges in everything from 4x4s to rally-cross and Formula 4000 racing cars. Meanwhile, It’s Not Rocket Science (6 X 60 min) is a fast-paced edutainment show (which is unusual in the market today) that brings science to life through thrilling large-scale experiments.”

Hyeonza continued, “The Chinese market today is more dynamic than ever and it’s an important market for us at ITVS GE. Last year we signed a co-development deal with Huace TV to produce a new ice skating show in the lead-up to the 2020 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, and many of our clients are interested in co-production and/or co-development opportunities with us to create the next big hit. We had a number of conversations with potential Chinese partners at MIPTV and we look forward to continuing these at Shanghai TV market.”

Last year also saw the first ever CHINA FORMATS, a unique twoday event that was hosted by STVF and 3C Media. It was designed to promote unique exchanges between the Chinese formats industry and the international content business. 23 panel discussions and industry workshops were held with many industry veterans, decision-makers and top format production and distribution companies. They came from both local and foreign organisations, representing a stronghold of 400 participants.

CHINA FORMATS was designed with MIPFormats in mind, so that STVF could be ready for the international markets. This was also to promote the development of original TV content creation in China and to showcase the original Chinese content to the world.

The prestigious Magnolia Awards will once again be hosted during the market. The awards received 900 submissions from 70 over countries last year with 15 top winners emerging from TV dramas, documentaries, animations and variety shows.

The 22nd edition of Shanghai TV will give participants the chance to explore the most popular trends and thoughts currently happening in the Chinese TV industry. The STVForum, an intensive 3-day programme, is looking to address the creative side of the business such as scriptwriting and project devlopment, with a range of industry talks.

In collaboration with Media Partners Asia (MPA), this year’s event will host the first ever knowledge exchange forum, a China and Global Video Opportunity Forum uniting leaders in the TV digital video industries in China, Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America. It sets the stage for cultural exchange between domestic and international media players, providing a unique networking platform for attendees.

China’s TV & digital video markets lead in Asia-Pacific, generating revenue of approximately US$50 billion, according to MPA, which could grow to more than US$75 billion by 2021, making content creation, production and distribution a vital part of China’s world leading media & entertainment ecosystem.

The forum will take place on June 10, 2016 as a part of the official Shanghai TV Festival. Other eventful items include the Magnolia Screening, The Night of Glory, Shanghai Student TV Festival and many more.