China's Listed Publishing&Media Companies' Investment In Film&TV Industry

Publishing industry is an important driving force that promotes the development of China' s cultural industries,therefore,it has always been strongly supported by government.Listed on the stock exchange,publishing companies could not only get economic support for their main business,but are given the chance to explore other forms of business as well with relatively strong economic strength.In recent years,it has become a common practice for listed publishing&media companies to explore new forms of business,which are mainly media-related industries with potential and prospects for future development like film&TV industry,games industry and education industry etc..This phenomenon is the precise expression of McLuhan's idea about“energy of the media convergence",which is one of the theoretical bases supporting the integration between medias,including publishing and film&TV,and is being backed up continuously by those successful cases of media integration.Integration in the industrial level would further lead to business integration,which makes companies attempt to explore cross-industry and cross-media businesses.As for publishing companies,faced with the slowing down and the losing of audience in traditional publishing business,and the prosperity in film&TV industry,listed publishing&media companies equipped with certain capacity of capital operation should take the chance of media convergence to break through the dilemma and seek for further development.In addition,the practice of cross-border operation has won support of national government,therefore,there emerges various research about media convergence in both vertical and horizontal angles,in which new concepts like"pan-entertainment",''cross-media" and "intermedia property" are introduced.It's not long before listed publishing&media companies in China entered the market economy through transformation into enterprises,reorganization and listing.Therefore,compared with the media-developed countries,publishing industry in China is relatively inexperienced.However,it's equipped with a great brand reputation built by craftsmanship spirit of publishing,and armed with the strong back up of national policies due to its function of inheriting socialist culture.In the meantime,the film&TV industry in China has entered a golden era of development in recent years,showing prosper prospects.Besides,as both the part of cultural industries themselves,there is a natural connection of content between publishing and film&TV industries,which could be demonstrated by many cases.For example,as the first movie in China,The Battle of Mount Dingjun was adapted from stories in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.Influential movies and TV plays nowadays like Youth,Legend of the Demon Cat,Empresses in the Palace,Nirvana in Fire are all adapted works.In the wave of media convergence,the competition environment of market,the development trends of cultural industries,and the needs and preferences of audience are all changing,with the support of policies,listed publishing&media companies in China should make full use of capital as the leverage to explore effective means of extending and expanding industrial chain,and making the main business bigger and stronger.Under this circumstance,and together with the bright prospect of film&TV industry,it is just the right time for listed publishing&media companies to invest in film&TV industry.On this account,this paper focuses on the practice of China's listed publishing&media companies' investment in film&TV industry.Based on theories of media convergence and capital operation,this paper applies methods of case analysis,quantitative research,qualitative analysis and desk research to discuss the motivations and implement approaches of listed publishing&media companies' investment in film&TV industry,and further explore the problems therein by evaluating the effects of investment,in order to propose tentative but targeted solutions.