Singapore – The 9th edition of the annual Asia Television Forum (ATF) kicked off with an auspicious string of record numbers. Asia’s leading programming market and conference was attended by close to 700 participating companies from 50 countries over three days, marking an overall increase of 15 per cent from the last event. A total of 138 seller companies participated in the forum for the first time. Opened to an all-new exhibition format at Suntec Singapore, the expanded market symbolizes a new milestone and demonstrates ATF’s strength to strength growth since its inception in the year 2000. With a more spacious trading floor and new enhancements, more meeting areas were presented on the show floor this year, including exclusive facilities such as the Buyers’ Club, Coffee Point, Participants’ Club and hospitality lounges. International groups from France, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and Taiwan continued their support with a big collective presence of companies. Chinese and Japanese content were prominently represented with increased participation from key companies such as Beijing TV Media, Crei, Fantawild Animation, Hunan TV, Geneon, Jiangsu Broadcasting, Media Factory, MICO/NHK, Mitsui, Nippon Animation, Shanghai Media Group, Showgate, Shochiku, Yomiuri Telecasting, TV Asahi, TV Tokyo and Wuhan TV Station. Major players including Al Jazeera Children’s Channel, Endemol and Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) demonstrated their confidence in the potential of Asia’s growing entertainment market through strong booth presence evident on the market floor. In addition, SPTI jointly exhibited with 2waytraffic for the first time since the acquisition of the light entertainment company by Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) earlier in June this year. “ATF returns bigger and stronger, and the featured content is more varied than before. This is an encouraging sign for Asia’s entertainment industry especially in the context of the current economic climate. It also re-affirms ATF’s position as the must-attend market to convene and look for new business opportunities,” said Michelle Lim, general manager, Reed Exhibitions Singapore. Next year’s Asia Television Forum will take place December 2-4 2009.