September 2013
How to Form an Optimal Relationship with China amid the Fear of “Hollowing Effect”
Ken-ichi Yamada
Recently in Taiwan, there has been an upsurge in broadcasts of “Made in China” dramas, fueled mainly by their competitive prices, to the extent that they can now vie with Korean counterparts as the two top foreign TV dramas. It is true that Chinese dramas are highly enticing for Taiwanese TV stations that are struggling financial woes and want to avoid producing high-cost TV dramas by themselves, but if this trend is left unattended, it may cause a “hollowing effect” of domestic TV drama production, with more and more Taiwanese actors and producers flowing out to China in search of work. TV stations that are in a relatively healthy financial condition such as Sanlih E-Television (SET), Formosa Television Inc. (FTV), and Gala Television Corporation (GTV) are proud to produce their own dramas, but even for them capital recovery is quite difficult in the Taiwanese market alone, with a population of 23 million people, and if a broadcaster wants to make its own dramas, the Chinese market with more than 1.3 billion population carries a lot of weight. However, there are many hurdles in exploring the Chinese market: first, severe prior examinations, or censorship, by the authority, secondly, the limit in broadcast slots and time that are imposed for Chinese TV stations importing foreign dramas. In addition, it is pointed out that there is a problem that the Chinese government unofficially places various “political” requirements on Taiwanese broadcasters when China imports TV programs made in Taiwan. Thus, entry into the Chinese TV drama market is associated with a pile of difficulties, but if Taiwanese TV stations do not want to settle for taking an easy way, or going “import only” by concentrating on broadcasting Chinese or other foreign dramas, they cannot avoid selling their own dramas to China. Given this situation, it seems that there is a rocky road ahead for broadcasters such as SET, FTV, and GTV before harvesting the fruits of their efforts.