Getting a children’s TV show to air in China is the dream of almost all major Western children’s TV companies, but so far few have found a way in. Given its market size and the potential upside in terms of marketing and retail, China is an appealing market for many UK entertainment brands, says Tom Simpson, MD of China operations and chief China representative at the China-Britain Business Council. Peppa Pig has become such a big hit in China, that it has transformed the finances of its parent company and done no end of good for Britain’s soft power. 

Now UK-based V&S Entertainment’s preschool cartoon Everything’s Rosie has the chance to appear in front of 120 million preschool children across the country following its deal with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

The cartoon first made its debut on UK broadcaster CBeebies in 2010 and follows a girl on a series of adventures that help her to learn important values and life lessons.

A broadcast deal has been agreed, with the assistance of CBBC, to license 104 episodes of the show, and is currently being dubbed into Mandarin at VSI Studios in London ahead of the launch on CCTV-14 in China.

Co-produced by V&S Entertainment and JCC, part of Al-Jazeera Children’s Channel, the series has already aired in more than 170 countries, including RTVE in Spain, Canal Panda in Portugal and SRC in Canada.

“As China’s largest children’s TV broadcaster, working with CCTV-14 was an obvious choice for us, enabling millions of Chinese children to experience the joy of Everything’s Rosie,” says Vickie Corner, MD at V&S Entertainment.

“The series was developed in conjunction with leading educationalist Brian Neish, meaning it naturally complements the high regard in which education is held in China. We believe Everything’s Rosie will make an ideal English-language companion for China’s preschool market,” says Corner.

A delightful consequence of this social play is the depth and range of additional learning children can take away from every episode, including learning about nature, new language and starting points for their own play at home

It’s a great programme to fly the flag for creative content from the UK adds CBBC’s Tom Simpson: “Everything’s Rosie’s imminent launch on CCTV also highlights the inherent appeal of high-quality British children’s content in China,” he says.

“As both entertainment and educational content, Everything’s Rosie is well suited to benefit from the significant demographic and consumer spending changes brought on by the end of China’s one-child policy. The China-Britain Business Council is proud to work with innovative UK companies like V&S Entertainment and assist in overcoming the challenges inherent to such a dynamic and fast-moving market.”

Everything’s Rosie will join shows such as Rev & Roll from WildBrain, Entertainment One’s Ricky Zoom, Endemol Shine International’s Mr Bean: The Animated Series, and Go Jetters from BBC Studios in launching on CCTV-14.

Brian Neish, an educational consultant for children’s television, says “Everything’s Rosie presents preschool-aged children with the best ideals connected with friendship, togetherness, fun and positive social interaction. This is exemplified by the high quality of imaginative play modelled by all its characters, and the way they interact as a group to make things happen with a child-centred emphasis.

Everything’s Rosie will be broadcast to 120 million Chinese pre-school children on CCTV-14

“A delightful consequence of this social play is the depth and range of additional learning children can take away from every episode, including learning about nature, new language, soft science and starting points for their own play at home,” he says.

The deal between V&S Entertainment and CCTV highlights the truly long game many children’s TV producers can play when it comes to sustaining the lifespan of their IP.

Many of the high-end dramas for adults that debuted a decade ago will now be gathering dust in the cavernous libraries of various streaming services. But the shelf life of animated series for preschoolers are famously lengthy, meaning a show that launched in 2010 can still gain traction when it launches in a new territory.

V&S Entertainment has set up a dedicated office in Beijing to broaden the IP’s exposure to facilitate publishing, broadcast and licensing opportunities with various platforms in the region, according to Corner.  V&S Entertainment will certainly be hoping everything will be rosy for them once their IP makes its way into China, and based on past experience, it may well be.

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There’s a new app in town and it is taken the nation by storm, but it’s not Angry Birds or Candy Crush that are keeping tens of millions of users glued to their little screens. Instead, people in restaurants, on subways and even in the classroom are earning points on Study the Great Nation – an app promoting the thought of Xi Jinping and the Party.

The patriotic app, which was launched earlier this year and has become the most downloaded app on the Apple Store in China claims to have over 100 million users and counting. And the users are learning about President Xi, watching videos about international delegations and answering quizzes on government policy and news – all whilst accumulating points.

The app was developed by China’s Propaganda Department and Alibaba and bolsters awareness of China’s history, geography and culture but its main purpose is to make sure citizens brush up on their politics and answer questions and watch videos. Points are gained by answering quizzes correctly or watching full episodes of online videos with titles such as ‘Xi Time’.

Schools, government departments and companies are all encouraging their staff and students to build up their points tally by playing the game frequently

The app is designed to encourage loyalty to the nation, the party and to Xi Jinping at a time when President Xi himself has said that the party could lose its grip on power if it does not master digital media. Some have said Study the Great Nation app is similar to Mao’s Little Red Book – a collection of Mao’s political thoughts that everyone was encouraged to read and carry on them at all times during the 1960s. But the difference between the Little Red Book and Study the Great Nation is that the app records people’s scores. The Propaganda Department keeps the data on users’ rankings and points, and questions are being asked as to whether it links in with the Social Credit System that ranks citizens on their spending, social and political behavioural habits.

Schools, government departments and companies are all encouraging their staff and students to build up their points tally by playing the game frequently. Some staff are being told to share screengrabs as evidence of their diligent playing and point-scoring. Workers and students with low scores are publicly shamed or told to write criticisms, and some workers have complained that if certain points targets are not hit then they are met with threats of salary deductions or bonuses being withheld. Conversely, those with exceptionally high scores have been praised in the media and hailed as local heroes.

China is aware that it needs to be on top of technology to be on top of its people and in an era of surveillance, monitoring and data collection, Study the Great Nation wraps all of that up in one handy device.

The post How a new Little Red App is mentoring and monitoring China’s workforce appeared first on Focus - China Britain Business Council.

Driving through Beijing’s northern suburbs last week I saw the government’s latest green policy in action. Trucks, their flatbeds piled high with motionless trees, were winding up wide roads searching out suitable dumping grounds. These young saps were being unloaded on the roadside, their roots bundled in rope and their trunks covered in gauze to keep away the dust and sand from the encroaching desert.

Behind them their destiny could be seen; trees of all colours, shapes and sizes were being planted to create brand new fields of woodland. Each sapling was planted equidistant to those around it, a scene stretching off as far as the eye could see in a manner reminiscent of a military graveyard. Of course, the soldiers working in these fields were not planting headstones but were instead planting hundreds of thousands of saplings that will go on to clean the air and reduce pollution, in neat organised rows, all as part of a new ‘Green Great Wall.’

China has announced ambitious plans to plant 32,400 square miles of trees by the end of the year and has garnered positive headlines admiring its reassignment of 60,000 soldiers to plant them. With plans to increase the country’s forest cover from 21 percent of total landmass to 23 percent by 2020 these ambitions are certainly to be admired.

However, looking out across these tree fields in the arid Beijing desert reminded me of the story of how, during China’s Great Famine of 1959-1961, healthy crops were planted along Chairman Mao’s railway route to give him the impression that the country’s harvest was bountiful when, in truth, it was disastrous.

Rushed campaigns that look like they are making an environmental Great Leap Forward might well end up causing more harm than good

Will China’s great greening actually bring long term benefits or is it a way of getting positive headlines and giving the impression that something is being done to tackle China’s pollution problem?

“People are planting lots of trees in big ceremonies to stem desertification, but then later no one takes care of them, and they die”

One education company I spoke to said it was encouraged to take part in the greening, and that the children it worked with had spent last spring planting hundreds of trees in Beijing’s suburbs. Fast forward a year and, so I was told, all those trees that had been planted had died.

“With the Great Green Wall, people are planting lots of trees in big ceremonies to stem desertification, but then later no one takes care of them, and they die,” Jennifer L. Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the D.C.-based Woodrow Wilson Center, said in a recent edition of National Geographic.

For the programme, many healthy trees are taken from their natural habitat in other parts of China and moved to the semi-arid areas around Beijing, where pollution is worse but the environmental conditions make it hard for trees to survive. These manmade forests also suck up valuable water, lowering the already perilously low water table and forcing land to be irrigated. The planting of trees on land that is naturally home to shrubs and grassland actually adds to the desertification.

Negative effects can also be seen in the findings of a recent study which said that the manmade forests around Beijing can actually lead to an increase in pollution by as much as 15 percent as the trees slow down the winds that would otherwise blow away the pollution in the Beijing basin.

The premise is an excellent one, trees do remove ozone, nitric oxides, sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and filter out PM2.5 pollutants. However, rushed campaigns that look like they are making an environmental Great Leap Forward might well end up causing more harm than good. We only have to look at recent history to learn that mass campaigns don’t necessarily produce the intended results.

The views represented in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the China-Britain Business Council.

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Can you introduce yourself?

I’m a native of Chongqing, a place known for its hot pot, hilly landscapes, and one of the world’s largest city populations – 30 million. But I have spent slightly more time in Beijing than in my home city. I came to Beijing in 1998, starting as an undergrad at Tsinghua University. I still remember horse carts running in the streets of Haidian, which now, of course, is China’s Silicon Valley. After a short two-years’ work at CCTV, I went to Columbia Missouri in the U.S. to pursue a master’s degree at its famous journalism school and learned many Midwestern survival skills on the sidelines, such as driving, not just cars but also tractors, and how to properly say “Missourah”.

Can you tell me a bit about your career path? Which jobs you have had up until now and how you got them?

My career path has been relatively simple in the Chinese context. In a country where changing jobs is the norm, and good social mobility along with that I’d say, I have stuck to one industry. I’ve always worked in journalism, and likely will continue doing that in the foreseeable future. But within that one industry, the trajectory has spanned across a few regions and different organizations.

I started my work in Chinese state-owned media organizations – first with an internship at the Xinhua news agency, then I worked full time as a documentary producer at China Central Television, and I also had the pleasure of working at one of the best international media, the Wall Street Journal, as the managing editor for its Chinese language operation. But my longest professional service, 11 years, is with arguably China’s best team of investigative journalists, first at Caijing magazine, then at Caixin media.

When one starts to use “decade” to count his/her work in one industry, getting jobs takes a little more than information flow in the network and headhunters. But my favourite memory was in 2006, right before I graduated from Columbia-Missouri. I wrote a long letter to Hu Shuli, then chief editor of Caijing magazine, not just asking for a job, but asking her to create a correspondent job in the US and give it to me. At that time, I had been freelancing for Caijing for several months, investigating corrupt Chinese financial officials who fled to the US on the eve of an industry-wide banking restructure. But writing to the Chief Editor directly, also an icon for most journalists in China, was daunting. The email was long, and I probably devoted more passion in writing that than any love letters in my life. Upon receiving it, Shuli turned to my handler, the International Editor, and asked, who is this? One month later, I got the job.

It’s a fond memory partly because it repeats itself all the time. Now I often receive job-seeking cover letters from young journalists, Chinese and non-Chinese. Passion is often a shared language.

What does your role at Caixin involve?

I’m currently a vice president of Caixin Media, and managing director of Caixin Global. In a nutshell, my job is to introduce Caixin, China’s leading financial and business media, to the world – its award-winning investigative journalism, its influential events platforms, and its comprehensive data services.

My first and most important responsibility is managing the English language newsroom and news products. Caixin has about 200 journalists, including about 30 working for Caixin Global, the English version (www.caixinglobal.com). Every day, the English language newsroom provides coverage of China’s business and financial news, providing scoops, depth and context to stories that help the global business community better understand China. It’s a highly professional team, with veteran editors and reporters with decades of experience working for Reuters, Bloomberg, AFP etc. The day-to-day is run by managing editor Doug Young, a senior journalist from Reuters, and my role is more like a publisher, assisting Doug and the team to produce the best coverage.

Be cautious, since truth is often hidden and many try hard to hide it

Like most established business media, there are several natural derivatives of news – intelligence, events and data. China’s market offers unique opportunities on all three grounds, given its inadequate information flow and fast evolving financial policies and investment community. I set up Caixin Global Intelligence, a boutique intelligence team, to provide macro-economic and financial industry analysis, as well as data services, to global institutional and other investors. Moreover, knowledge has to be coupled with networking, and rampant fake information in the social media age highlights the need for offline, face-to-face exchanges. I formed the Caixin Global Roundtable series, hosting eight to ten roundtables in the US, Europe, Asia and other regions in the world, and helped to bring more international content and discussion into the well-known Caixin Summits.

Can you tell me about any specific challenges you have faced in your career?

The news industry has changed dramatically. For me or anyone in the news business, the challenge is to keep up with the changes and find a way to keep ahead. The first challenge came from rising tech platforms, then social media, and later news aggregators assisted by AI. In changing times, actually it’s important to stay true to the mission – news is very much a mission-driven, idealistic profession. The business model might change, but there is always a need for verified, objective, professionally produced information.

Caixin has become China’s first major media outlet to set up a paywall. The paywall provides a closer connection to readers, and has proven to be the way for quality media around the world to stay in business and grow.

There are other challenges too. The need for independent journalism has stayed strong in China in order to provide critical information in a society undergoing rapid transition. But the quality providers are few and far between. Quite a number of journalists have left the profession, for regulatory, business or personal reasons. Temptations have never been stronger to take lucrative jobs in powerful Chinese tech companies.

That’s exactly why I cherish the Caixin team, which is still doing journalism the old-fashioned way – investigate, verify, and verify again. Some stories take reporters months, or even years, to dig out. It requires both courage and resilience.

Do you think social media is a threat to traditional journalism?

I think the relationship between social media and professional media is more complicated than a simple rivalry. On the one hand, social media can provide a public sphere that professional media can certainly benefit from. On the other hand, rumours can crowd out credible but unsensational information.

I often receive job-seeking cover letters from young journalists, Chinese or non-Chinese. Passion is often a shared language

Traditional media have an uphill battle, but I believe they can win. The more information, especially the more untruthful information circulates around, the stronger the need for a trustworthy third party to provide facts. The caveat is, trust takes a long time to build. Media outlets including Caixin are building that very trust day in and day out.

Meanwhile, social media should also recognize that they are media platforms, hence their responsibilities with regard to information quality, and they should be aware of the damage that rumours can cause and take action on that front.

How has the MeToo movement affected the media industry in China?

There have been several cases where courageous victims came out to expose harassment by Chinese TV anchors or high-profile journalists. Overall it has not been a movement in the Chinese media industry but an educational experience and an alarm. It has shown people what behaviours are appropriate and what is not, and what to do when things go overboard.

Caixin was established and is now run and managed by a majority female senior team – do you see that as setting an example for other publications?

The overall male-female ratio at Caixin tilts toward female but the top management it is about 50-50. The real imbalance is at the hiring stage – definitely more female reporters and applicants than male.

There might be a role-model effect. If someone you look up to has shown what can be done, and if that someone is within your sight, they can be there when you need them. That’s a culture I like at Caixin. The culture is largely gender-neutral, but with time more and more females have stepped up and assumed more responsibilities. Every publication has its own culture. As long as it’s fair, transparent, and mission-driven, I believe females will thrive and shine.

What advice do you have for young women aiming to break into the media world?

Be curious, there are so many things out there to be discovered. Be cautious, since truth is often hidden and many try hard to hide it. Persevere, it takes more than a scoop, but a long time, and dedication, to build trust and gain insight.

With all that in mind, have fun. What’s more important than doing something so fun, and having people pay you for that!

The post Li Xin of Caixin, China’s most authoritative independent media organisation appeared first on Focus - China Britain Business Council.

Tell me about your current role and the path you took to get there.

 I am the anchor of the “Global Business” show for CGTN (formerly CCTV-News).  My working life started back in 1995 in Australia. My parents pressured me into studying accounting, which is how I started my professional career.  After six years of boredom as a corporate zombie (read Scott Adams’ “Dilbert” books), I chanced upon a job to relocate to Jinan in eastern China for a Sino-Australian joint venture.

Thus began an adventure that took me around power stations and coal mines, as well as dodgy KTV bars with bureaucrats. When that ended, I took a 90 per cent pay cut to start as an intern with then CCTV-9, the state broadcaster’s English channel.  In the first month, I learned the strange behind-the-scenes stuff of TV (there are 24 frames to a second), failed my first TV interview miserably, and performed a rap song for ten Chinese ministers who were learning English.

Two months later, I was asked to anchor a 15-minute weekly show called “Financial Review”.  After 18 months I was approached to work for the biggest business TV network in the world – CNBC.  Whether it’s door-stopping officials, schmoozing with billionaires, geeking out on economic data or – more often, enduring the one thousand and one pains of the TV industry – never for one minute do I think, is it Friday yet? When can I retire? Because I already have the best job in the world.

I’d like to see less objectification, less double standards in societal norms

Who were your role models and why?

My parents, who’d been through the great famine and the Cultural Revolution, then took me to Australia. Through their example, I learned to work hard and be nice, be grateful, smile in the face of disaster.  My mother is a feminist in her views and never set gender boundaries for me.  I am also inspired by every strong and talented woman I’ve met – be they my ayi, CEOs, TV producers, lawyers, anyone who has stared down crises and shoved aside barriers.

What challenges have you faced that you think are particular to women? How did you deal with them? 

Pumping milk while doing a phone interview with the foreign ministry?  Weighing up important coverage with important milestones in your kids’ lives?  Going to work the next day after domestic violence?  I work harder, plan better, remind myself for every sacrifice, there is a reward.

What do you think the benefits of gender diversity are to business?

More women political leaders mean less wars. More women in the boardroom mean better corporate citizenship, and higher returns. The 2012 Credit Suisse Research Institute study shows companies with women on the board had higher average returns on equity and higher net income growth from 2005 to 2011. A more recent Reuters study found that globally, boards with female members tend to see better returns and less volatility compared to a benchmark index.

Gender diversity means better connection with consumers.  Promoting women leads to more women motivated to go into senior leadership, otherwise men are more likely to promote men, because they are familiar.

What do you hope will change that will enable gender diversity to be possible?

In China, sexism awareness is still low. The old roots of patriarchal society are deep.  Media stereotypes are often one-dimensional: “tough boss lady” with a sad personal life or the “mistress” or “house-wife” whose homely looks mean she loses the man to the former.  I’d like to see less objectification, less double standards in societal norms, less recruitment discrimination, more portrayal of real women in the media, more girls’ education that “strong” is not a dirty word.  In areas like banking and politics, perhaps initially quotas are necessary to empower women.

Is there any advice you would like to share with other women contemplating chasing senior roles in business?

Work out in your twenties what you don’t want to do.  Be as ambitious as you want. Stop “guilting” yourself for society’s double standards, revel in being called “tough lady” or “bitch”.  Money will come, if you love what you do.

This article is part of a series to profile women leaders in the community, to share experience and create awareness about gender diversity and what it can bring organisations. 

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