After China joins the WTO, its fledgling audiovisual industry will directly face fierce competition from the international market. How to improve the overall compositeness of the industry has become an urgent task for every insider in the industry. Liu Guoxiong, chairman of the China Audio-Video Association, talks about his idea on this issue in an interview.

He said, the government promulgated a series of laws and policies in the second half of 2002 to regulate the audiovisual market as never before, showing that more importance is attached to the industry. Audiovisual enterprises should grasp this opportunity and improve their own competitiveness. The alliance between Sun TV and SINA indicates the future trend of combining resources and Internet, which can help create strong giants. Precedents of the like include the merger between Time Warner and AOL, the strategic alliance between Legend and Changhong, and so forth. The development of international audiovisual industries is a process to wash out small enterprises according the principle of "the fittest survive". It's the same case with China. That is to say that several large audiovisual enterprises are supposed to phase out small ones and create a new structure in the industry.

As for how to improve audiovisual enterprises' competitiveness, Liu Guoxiong mentioned strategies in three aspects:

First, the audiovisual industry should attach much importance to the new media - the Internet, which is currently the most advanced and powerful media and is not limited by time and space. The Internet features fast speed in spreading information, easy reproduction and convenient download. The audiovisual industry is more and more closely connected to the Internet such as e-business, VOD and interactive TV, etc. Much more functions that are unimaginable today will become reality tomorrow.

Second, it should pay attention to consistency of the industrial chain - from making to publishing, release and distribution. At present, the industrial chain is broken and we should improve its consistency according to international practice. For instance, making and publishing are disconnected. As a result, many audiovisual makers do not enjoy the publishing right while some enjoying the publishing right do not have product-making resources. Time Warner, which has a home video company and a disc company, is rich in resources. The alliance between Sony and Columbia Broadcasting System also formed an industrial chain linking up resources and publishing. In China, few film studios and TV stations own production companies.

Third, it should greatly promote original music. The China Audio-Video Association will also make some efforts in this aspect and it considers setting up an original music fund, an anti-piracy fund, the collective management system of audiovisual copyright, more authoritative prizes for original music, a digital audiovisual library and a management network of audiovisual products and so on. Among these tasks, setting up a digital audiovisual library is an important one since it will fill the gap between China and other countries in this field and help utilize and accumulate resources, promote original audiovisual programming, satisfy increasing VOD demand and help create a release channel for authentic audio-video products.

(Source: China Culture Newspaper)