China Dream Show [Photo: Caixin]
China's television production sector appears to be entering a more creative and potentially market-ready phase now that BBC Worldwide Ltd. has shown interest in buying a copyrighted reality-talent show format pioneered by Zhejiang Satellite Television (ZJST).
BBC Worldwide plans to pay an undetermined amount for the latest version of Chinese Dream Show if the popular program continues to win high audience ratings, said Du Fang, deputy director at ZJST.
A statement emailed to Caixin from BBC Worldwide said the company has had early discussions with Zhejiang Satellite Television and Shixi Media about the Chinese Dream Show format, however no partnership or formal offer has been agreed or put forward at this stage.
An agreement would be significant because foreign entertainment companies have traditionally sold TV rights to the Chinese, not the other way around. Industry insiders say China's television producers have preferred buying or copying creative works made abroad rather than paying their own staff to generate creative material.
Overseeing the deal is the Beijing-based copyright manager Shixi Media, which in early 2011 helped ZJST buy the format copyright of a BBC show called Tonight's the Night, laying the groundwork for Chinese Dream Show and what are now deepening ties between the British and Zhejiang entertainment companies.
Shixi also helped iron out differences stemming from ZJST's decision to air a modified form of Chinese Dream Show beyond a 25-week period, apparently in violation of its agreement with BBC Worldwide.
Differences between the entertainment companies have been significant, and since early this year their relationship has been strained.
Common practice has it that a TV show copyright owner must approve any format changes for an original TV program, said Xu Fan, a lecturer at the Communication University of China's School of Television and Journalism. A show's title and format are part of what the industry calls a "production bible," Xu said, the contents of which are covered by the copyright.
Each contestant appearing on stage for Tonight's the Night shows as well as Chinese Dream Show gets a chance to have a "dream come true." In the British show and early versions of the Chinese program – the first series of which aired from April to July, 2011, and in the second series that spanned October to December, 2011 – "dreams" revolved around a chance to be a star performer before a television audience.
In the revised Chinese program, which first aired in April, contestants were given a chance to win prizes such as a bicycle or a job as a TV moderator.
ZJST apparently adjusted the British show without BBC Worldwide's permission, a source said, and settled the disagreement by rejiggering the format but keeping the title Chinese Dream Show. BBC Worldwide officials apparently saw the friction as an opportunity to pry open China's closed-to-foreigners TV sector.
BBC Worldwide as "the original copyright owner adequately tolerated" the Chinese TV producer "to open up the Chinese market" to foreign entertainment companies, the source said.
Give Them More
ZJST officials were also interested in cutting production costs and expanding the scope of contestant dreams when they decided to change the Chinese Dream Show format and continue beyond a 25-program limit without BBC Worldwide's permission, according to the industry source.
Du said the show's producers changed the show because they wanted to give contestants much more than a chance to perform. An on-stage host selects and presents to a studio audience the best contestant dreams, and the winner is picked by the 300-plus audience members.
Du said ZJST offered to sell the Chinese Dream Show format to BBC Worldwide after the format adjustment sent viewer ratings soaring. But a Shixi source said the British company challenged the Chinese decision to change the structure of the show's game.
Shixi Chairman Liu Xichen said his company mediated the dispute because "ZJST is also our client. We served ZJST. Meanwhile, we explained the matter to BBC Worldwide."
BBC Worldwide officials listened and looked carefully at the production bible, particularly because the program's popularity had climbed. Moreover, ZJST had worked with Shixi experts to smooth out the show's production details to fit international standards that BBC Worldwide could accept.
BBC Worldwide officials later "basically accepted our production bible," said Liu, although "some details still need to be revised based on their requests."
In October, the latest version of Chinese Dream Show was shown at the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Festival in France. It marked the first time a Chinese TV producer had offered the international TV industry a program with a market-ready production bible, said Du.
At the festival, officials from ZJST, Shixi and BBC Worldwide finalized an agreement through which BBC Worldwide said it would buy the Chinese Dream Show copyright if viewer ratings for the fourth series, to be aired between October and January, were as high as the third.
Changing Market
Chinese TV producers bought few format copyrights before 2010. Since then, attitudes and the business itself have changed.
Today "each TV station has specific staffers looking for good, foreign programs," said Xiang Renli, an industry expert and author of the book TV Station Directors. "Before 2010, most TV networks just imitated or copied overseas programs. They didn't think about buying copyrights."
Liu said Hunan Television spent almost 10 million yuan to buy format copyrights for years before 2010, but none of the other TV producers in China bothered to sign copyright purchase deals.
In 2010, though, the Shanghai-based producer Dragon TV bought the format copyright for a London-produced show called Britain's Got Talent through the London-based broker IPCN Ltd.
Using the Britain's Got Talent production bible, Dragon TV produced its own version and called it China's Got Talent. Viewer ratings were high, and the program's revenues hit more than 400 million yuan in 2010, representing nearly half the producer's gross revenues that year.
"The success of China's Got Talent made other Chinese TV networks realize the importance of the production bible," said Yang Yuancao, chairman of IPCN. "By buying a program format copyright, Chinese TV stations get not only a program's production procedures but also the core ideas behind a program and the copyright owner's professional skills.
"If Chinese TV networks take a good program format seriously and treat it well, the program they produce based on the format will generate considerable revenues," Yang said. "Now, more and more Chinese TV stations are starting to buy copyrights."
Peng Kan, program format director at Jinan-based Yuezheng Advertising Media Co. Ltd., said state-run China Central Television recently started holding two workshops every month to review overseas program formats.
"When a good program format pops up, CCTV will buy it." Peng said.
Indeed, as of May, Chinese TV producers across the country had bought 19 format copyrights from foreign owners. And producers this year plan to buy more than 30 copyrights from overseas owners for up to 30 million yuan.
"This year, Chinese TV stations large and small are grasping good program formats," said Xiang. "It is a blowout year for the program format copyrights market."
Zhou Xiaopu, a professor of radio and television at Renmin University of China, said few Chinese TV producers in the past bought copyrights in part because they had no business incentive to do so. But now that competition in the sector has heated up, each is interested in buying copyrights.
Insiders say the marketable Chinese television sector is still in its infancy stage. Based on business activity in Europe and the United States, producing and selling a copyright can yield an entertainment company up to US$ 30,000 per episode. Liu said Chinese TV stations are used to paying much less – no more than US$ 26,400 for each show in a typical, 12-part series.
Xu said the market for TV shows in China is changing now that entertainment companies are learning how foreign counterparts succeed by promoting productivity and creativity, and by developing formats that can be sold abroad. But for Chinese producers trying to break into the global marketplace, more work lies ahead.
"We are still stumbling along through the first stage," he said. "It's a long road ahead for the market."