The creative strength of Hong Kong’s artistic community has declined and now lags behind the mainland, media entrepreneur Li Ruigang warns

November 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Warning over HK’s slipping creative strength
Grace Cao
Tuesday, November 05, 2013
The creative strength of Hong Kong’s artistic community has declined and now lags behind the mainland, media entrepreneur Li Ruigang warns. “Hong Kong should have done better as there is no dearth of talent and media industry professionals,” said Li, the former president of Shanghai Media Group – an arm of the municipal government. Li worked for SMG before starting his private equity fund in 2009.He said the SAR was once a pioneer in making Chinese-language films, television drama and general entertainment programs. But now mainland artists are taking more risks and doing a better job, he said.

Li is aware of Hong Kong’s TV license row.

“In general, creativity in the SAR is declining. The government needs to allow more creativity that meets audience demand,” he said.

“But, on the other hand, it needs to strike a balance as too much competition may mean nobody can survive under a limited ad market.”

Many believe that Hong Kong Television Network, which was not awarded a free-to-air TV license by the government, would be a strong threat to Television Broadcasts, the dominant player. Li’s private equity fund CMC has set up a joint venture with TVB, mainly for distributing programs in the mainland. They have started producing TV dramas in Putonghua. CMC also has a joint venture with DreamWorks – Oriental DreamWorks – which is working on Kung Fu Panda 3, scheduled for release in 2015.

Li, the man behind The Voice of China, suggested Hong Kong media

try to export content like their peers in South Korea.

“Hong Kong is still influential and a unique base for Chinese [media] content to globalize,” Li said.

Hong Kong media companies have been eyeing the mainland market, which has become the world’s largest TV drama and animation maker, producing 15,000 episodes of dramas and 200,000 minutes of cartoons each year.

The country also has the second-largest movie audience after the United States as box office earnings hit 17 billion yuan (HK$21.6 billion) last year, up 30 percent from the previous year.

Last year, Hong Kong’s box office earnings were only HK$1.56 billion, contributed largely by Hollywood blockbusters.

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