Andrea Jao
Rapid
globalization and digitalization have brought about a new set of exciting
opportunities and challenges for the audiovisual content industry in Asia,
Taiwan included. While China, Japan, and Korea have each embarked on its own
path to make their own competitive and authentic audiovisual content, Taiwan
faces several challenges due to its small market size, limited resources, and
other entrenched factors within the industry. In its recent efforts to upgrade
and boost the television and filming industry in the country, the Bureau of
Audiovisual and Music Industry Development of Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture has
set up a series of international symposiums under the overall theme of
developing the audiovisual content industry, for the public to learn from the
experiences of other major Asian countries. The symposiums focus on both the
technical side, such as the technological development and application, as well
as the business side, the possibility for cross-industrial cooperation. This
essay largely draws upon and essentially culminates the lessons learned from
the symposiums to reflect on the Taiwanese content development. In other words,
it is my goal here to delve into an overview analysis of Taiwan’s own
predicament in developing audiovisual contents for the television and film
sector for the 21 Century and the overall environment, in order to evaluate
possible paths for the future.
The Overall Picture:
Television and
film industry plays a vital role in the Taiwanese digital content industry,
which in turn contributes greatly to the economy. The Taiwanese demand for
digital content is growing, particularly for the sub-field of audiovisual
content. According to the 2014 report on the Digital Content Industry in
Taiwan, published by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, the country’s
digital content industry annual production value amounts to 858.2 billion NTD. That
is a growth of 17.49% compared to 2013. To further dissect this industrial
expansion to show the importance of audiovisual content, a look at the data
published by the same industry report would reveal that the audiovisual
industry grew from 86.1 billion NTD in 2013 to 141 billion NTD in 2014,
achieving a growth of 63.76%, and making it the fastest growing digital content
sub-field. The major factors that lie behind this impressive increase in values
include the increasing accessibility of and the improving speed of wireless
internet, digitalization of traditional TELEVISION programs, and convenience
provided by smart mobile devices. What we can conclude from these numbers is
that the television and film industry in Taiwan is standing at a crossroad, a
point where the traditional consumption of audiovisual contents is giving way
to a much more digitalized and mobile experience. Although audiovisual contents
include more than just television and film products, the potential that TELEVISION
and film producers face in the age of internet and smart phones is undeniable.
A Shifting Market:
With
digitalization and other Asian country’s TELEVISION and film content on the
rise, Taiwanese audience is exhibiting a clear shift in viewing behaviors, and
one of the key strategies that the Taiwanese government wishes to take upon is
the cross-industrial cooperation between players along the audiovisual value
chain. When talking about the audiovisual value chain, there are usual a few
varying numbers of links involved, depending on how detailed one wishes to
define each level. In this particular analysis, the chain is broken down into 4
links, with “content producers” being at the top of the chain, followed by the “content
aggregator,” the “host platform,” and finally “consumer device manufacturer.” The
traditional content producers are the ones who produce television and film
contents, such as Gin Star Entertainment, Jason’s Entertainment Company, and
other production companies. The traditional content aggregators put together
the produced programs, and they include everyday cable television networks such
as Sanlih Entertainment, Gala Television, Eastern Broadcasting, etc. The host
platform is the medium through which the programs are delivered to the
audience, including, most prominently, the Chunghwa Telecom MOD, LINE TELEVISION,
Coture.com. Finally the consumer devices are the hardware products such as the
smart phones in our pocket or the television box we use at home. The idea is
that the integration of some of the players among the Taiwanese audiovisual
content industry, can perhaps replicate the success of the likes of Amazon
Prime Videos, Netflix, or Hulu or maybe push the Taiwanese film and television
production onto the global market like the Korean have done with Korean dramas.
While these are promising goals, the very environment in which the Taiwanese
film and television industry makes a living poses several big challenges.
One of the major
challenges that the Taiwanese television and film content industry faces is the
difficulty in competing with foreign television series. The Taiwanese
television industry is dominated by the traditional cable networks, which are
broadcasting more and more foreign shows for profit reasons, making it
difficult for the Taiwanese contents to flourish in the market (Ministry of
Economic Affairs, 2014). This, combined with the limited market and finance
options that Taiwanese production companies have when producing a television
series, make self-made Taiwanese content extremely difficult. At the same time,
recent Chinese dramas see an increase in big-budget productions, which they
export more and more, cheaply too. The extremely large-scale and well-received
series such as Empresses in the Palace
and the new The Journey of the Flower often
make them more profitable and popular among Taiwanese cable networks. It is the
same Korean drama series, which are immensely popular among Taiwanese youth,
and are easier for the networks than having to produce native contents. The
dominance of the cable television networks and the difficulty in producing
self-made contents are at the root of two other challenges facing the Taiwanese
audiovisual content industry as it seeks to revolutionize through cross-industrial
cooperation for the 21st century.
Without a steady
flow of quality original contents, Taiwanese online streaming websites cannot
rival the foreign streaming giants as they begin to enter the Taiwanese market.
On a global scale, the growing popularity of streaming websites is changing the
game for television companies, as the websites not only aggregate but also
create self-made contents tailored to their audience. Although the Taiwanese
market is a few steps behind, it is undeniably a growing momentum as well. In
recent years there have been efforts by Taiwanese companies to create their own
streaming platform in order to capture the attention of younger Taiwanese
audience. Most of these streaming websites offer their members mostly foreign
contents, without much individuality or marketable uniqueness. However, the
fast expanding streaming websites are proving that it is necessary to rely on
original contents, such as Netflix’s House
of Cards, in order to capture the hearts of the audience. The Taiwanese
streaming websites have been rather slow to adopting, which undoubtedly and
partially as a result of the difficulty in creating authentically Taiwanese yet
internationally marketable content. The few that have embarked on road of
original content creation include Coture.com and Fanily, which still focus on
small-scale and closer-to-life productions.
The push for
digital television over traditional analogue television has also been hindered
by the environment that we just described that faces the Taiwanese television
and film industry. The Chunghwa MOD digital television has been a leader in the
Taiwanese digital television market, appealing to consumers by offering
multiple channels and instant access. It would have been a wonderful
opportunity for Taiwanese original contents to reach even greater audience, but
the established TELEVISION networks make it difficult for the two to cooperate
(Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2014). With a lack of content, Chunghwa MOD had
to turn to live streaming concerts, sports, and game competitions to garner
users, though making a niche for itself, but still puts it at a disadvantage
compared to devices such as Google Chrome.
Conclusion
There are many
opportunities for Taiwanese television and film content producers to gain a
greater audience beyond traditional cable network television, by placing their
contents on streaming website or digital television. It would then take
considerable effort by the industry and government to push for the change,
rather than allowing the dominance of cable network television dictate the
future of the Taiwanese film and television. Changes need to be made so that
Taiwanese native streaming websites and Taiwanese digital television can have
easier access to original contents, rather than allowing them to become another
video library. Ultimately, the convent industry itself needs to be revitalized
and needs much more external support. The fact is that the Taiwanese market alone is
not big enough, for films or TELEVISION series to make enough money off box
office alone or make commercial sponsorship profitable for the corporate
sponsors. In order to create a phenomenon such as the Korean pop culture or the
fast-generating Chinese dramas, the government has to take up a more engaging
role in funding and helping the Taiwanese film and television industry to map
out a future course of development.
Reference:
“2014 Digital Content Industry in Taiwan”.
2014. Ministry of Economic Affairs. <
http://www.dcipo.org.tw/upload/publish/2014/2014Industry.pdf>
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