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Rising pay of actors poses challenge for TV drama industry

CHINA'S TV drama industry is facing challenges of actors' rising pay, contaminated TV rating figures and the decreasing popularity of dramas adapted from popular online novels, industry insiders told Shanghai’s annual industry forum on the production and broadcasting of TV series today.

Last year China produced 271 TV dramas, only about 5 percent of which are popular ones with high TV ratings nationwide. Only a few productions are believed to be of “high artistry.”

Wang Leiqing, director of Shanghai Media Group’s Film and TV Drama Center, said that the rapidly rising pay of actors in a TV series has led to an incredible increase of the budget of TV stations.

"Last year many TV stations had to pay 6-10 million yuan for a single episode of the series," Wang added. "It was because that the pay of many A-list actors in China had increased by 250 percent. The proportion of actors' pay even accounted for 75 percent of the total production budgets for some series."

Additionally, the TV ratings system was also questioned for its credibility. Insiders said that due to the lack of transparency and openness, some high TV rating figures are not supervised and they are paid to get advertisements.

Although many famous online novels have been made into TV adaptations, their popularity didn't last long among audiences last year. Experts said that so many adaptations of similar genres and subjects have caused aesthetic fatigue among today's viewers.

Officials also announced today that this year Shanghai Media Group will build up a large film and TV production park at Jing'an District for shooting and post-production.

An investment fund will also be set up to foster and develop original contents for domestic film and TV series.




 

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