Find out who is tuning in - before they switch off

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Hunan TV has made some bold choices. Its target audience are mainly youngsters, which means it can take greater risks because young viewers prefer different types of edgy and innovative programs, says Kim Gordon with Imaginement China.

Other channels do not have specific audiences. In other words, they do not have good knowledge of what their viewers want to watch.

British companies like BBC and Channel 4 have large audience research departments with a huge budget to research viewer behavior, says Gordon. In China, however, without research, TV producers don't know their local audience.

"They are not trained to inquire, nor have time. Advertisers in China who have a major influence on the content probably don't know their audiences either. They may have their target audience, but they don't know what cultural questions they're thinking," he says.

Not understanding the viewers means the possibility of losing them, especially today when the Internet is already luring away the educated youth with content specifically catering to their interests, namely American TV series, Taiwan entertainment shows and tailor-made original creations. This fact doesn't seem to worry Chinese TV stations very much, Gordon says. He says concern about these issues is greater in Britain because TV stations take a long-term approach.

Peng from Legend Media believes that in China TV stations will try out new content using new media. In the future, he says, TV and Internet may blend into a new form of content provider.

"It doesn't mean TV will be dead. The key is the content. It doesn't matter through which platform you watch it," he says.

But the danger is that big websites might end up being hostages of TV stations, Gordon warns, if they don't create their own programs.

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