Chinese TV drama in a regional market: Aspiring to be a cultural actor?

Once isolated from the outside world, Chinese TV exclusively and loyally served as a Party's propaganda tool, and almost "zero" trans-border TV trade was developed. With China's unreserved embrace of market economy after the 1980s, TV production has been internationalized, and sporadic cases of overseas trade have taken place. Joining the WTO compelled Chinese TV officials to face increasing challenges from global broadcasters which led them to formulate the "going-global" policy to encourage large scale of TV exportation. China, now, has displayed its aspiration to increase its TV exportation, or put it more ambitiously, to "centralize" a regional Chinese cultural market, including the areas of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and possibly Korean and Japan. This paper adopts a historical analysis of the trend of China's TV exportation. It involves the discussion of the officials' motivation in the "going-global" policy-making process, the marketing strategies of Chinese producers who aim at overseas trade, the types of TV dramas which have been particularly produced to circulate abroad, as well as the consumption of these exported TV dramas by overseas audiences. Based on current situation, this paper argues that it would be too optimistic to conclude that China has been able to be the center for this regional market, either culturally or economically. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.