The first thing Suiming Tsui told his boss after joining I-cable Satellite Television in Shanghai three years ago was that Hong Kong was too small for him.

"I told them we would have no future being a local cable television channel despite our dominance," he recalls. "Our future lies on the mainland and beyond."

His boss apparently agreed. Since then, I-cable has joined the race with other Hong Kong TV networks and movie production houses to try to win a share of the rapidly growing mainland entertainment market. In addition to competing with each other, they are also facing strong competition from their counterparts in South Korea, Japan, Singapore and, more recently, the United States and Europe.

Nowhere has that global interests in the mainland market been more glamorously manifested in the Eighth Shanghai Film Festival held this week at the new Shanghai Exhibition Centre in Pudong. More than a dozen foreign television networks and program producers from around the world have booths in the vast exhibition hall to market their dramatic series and are searching for joint production partners on the mainland.

Interviewed at the film fair, Tsui reiterated the importance of the mainland market to the Hong Kong entertainment industry.

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A recent survey of China's 156 channels in 33 major cities showed the country produced about 1,500 dramas with 180,000 episodes in 2004, up 6 per cent over the previous year. Chinese TV audiences spent nearly 57 minutes watching dramas per day. Ads pitched for dramatic series accounted for nearly 45 per cent of total TV ads.

The survey, conducted by Shanghai's CVSC-SOFRES Media, the mainland's major media research firm, said local broadcasters introduced 70 dramas from overseas markets, 64 per cent of which were from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

I-cable, with 702,000 subscribers in Hong Kong, is actively seeking to sell its programs to mainland TV stations. The company, known for its in-depth coverage in news, sports and entertainment shows, didn't produce self-made TV dramas and documentaries until recent years.

"Distinguished Chinese Scientists Series," for instance, was one of its "blockbusters" targeting the mainland market. The 20-episode putonghua (standard Chinese) series told the successes of 10 renowned scientists, including astronautics expert Qian Xuesen and agriculturist Yuan Longping. It was well received in Hong Kong last year and was broadcast in prime time again, thanks to a fervent response, according to Tsui.

Having the successful launch of such series in Hong Kong, the company is now aggressively promoting its other self-produced programs in the mainland. It sent its strongest-ever marketing and sales team to participate at Shanghai international TV Festival that closed on Tuesday.

"The mainland market is huge and diverse enough to support local production," he said, without revealing the firm's sales performance during the festival.

To further tap the mainland market, I-cable plans to set up offices in Beijing and Shanghai early next year to be mainly responsible for strengthening the distribution network throughout the nation.

"We will focus on expanding our distribution network in the mainland, while continuing to produce dramas and some movies as well," said Tsui.

(China Daily June 18, 2005)