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2005-12-12 15:49:39 Source: Digital Commercial Times
Internet provides the entertainment industry with more diversified
profit-making modes.
SP also hopes to create more value from attractive films.
Interviewer¡¤writer = Xu Hao
In 2005, when the big-budget Christmas film A Chinese Tale Story
would appear on the stage, there were more companies working for
the film besides the investor, Huayi Brother Media Group. Two
years ago, Mtone Wireless cooperated with Huayi Brother for the
film Mobile Phone, introduced a short-message game called ¡°Mobile
Phone¡± and gained large income from it. Since then, SP has been
cooperating with film suppliers intensively. This year, Mtone
Wireless bought out the contents authorization of A Chinese Tale
Story as usual, promoted the film on the mobile net and planned
to introduce mobile value-added service based on the contents
of the film. Mtone also expects huge profits from the film as
Huayi Brother.
The mode ¡°SP + Film¡± is at the early stage of development
The singers and records companies earn money by selling discs,
while the film companies get income by selling tickets. This seems
to be an everlasting truth. However, along with the approaching
of the internet times, the traditional profit-making modes of
the entertainment industry have been changed or even overturned.
Recently, more and more people begin to download paid songs from
internet, and the world¡¯s three large records companies get even
more income from this than disc sales. This is the same case in
China. Wang Zhongjun, the chairman of Huayi Brother said: ¡°more
and more singers are not earning money by selling discs. For example,
this year, the sales volume of discs of the singing team Yu¡¤Quan
fell 50% as compared with that of last year, but the copyright
profits obtained from downloading has made up the gap of the discs
sales immediately. The singers used to earn money by performing
at various places even when they become very famous. Nowadays,
it is very easy for them to obtain profits from downloading.¡±
Wang zhongjun also said that in the coming two years, Huayi music
department would gain a big part of income from wireless value-added
service.
In comparison to music which brings huge profits to entertainment
industry and SP, film, the cultural product with rich contents
appears rather pale. ¡°The fifth media which takes mobile phone
as a carrier just appeared, and it is still at the trial stage
in terms of methods, details, theories or practice.¡± Wang Weijia
who has been praised as the founder of the wireless internet industry
and named as ¡°a lonely shouter¡± says that the industry is too
young to attract more pioneers. The cooperation between SP and
film industry is still at the early stage. To film companies,
the profits gained from mobile value-added field are more less
that that of ticket sales, and to SP, the income obtained from
the products based on films also accounts for a very small proportion.
However, it is expected that the combination of SP and films will
have a promising future.
In 2003, at the time when the film Mobile Phone was on show, Mtone
Wireless began to cooperate with Huayi Brother. This can be regarded
as a landmark of inter-infiltration between the wireless value-added
industry and the film entertainment industry. At that time, Wang
Weijia, the president of Mtone Wireless signed a three-year agreement
with Huayi out of the consideration that both parties were still
groping their ways in this field, and there was not any precedent
in the industry. The amount of the buying-out money was also decided
by the two parties through negotiations. Mtone Wireless advertised
the film Mobile Phone free of charge through the mobile phones
of the consumers for one hundred million times, while Huayi Brother
authorized Mtone to develop the contents of the film Mobile Phone
freely. As a result, the short-message game Mobile Phone and various
color rings and short-messages based on the lines of the film
were produced. Although Wang Weijia refused to reveal the concrete
income obtained from this cooperation, Wang Zhongjun said and
laughed that Mtone must obtain good profits, or otherwise they
wouldn¡¯t continuously cooperate with Huayi for the film A World
without Thieves and this year¡¯s A Chinese Tale Story. Wang Weijia
said that at that time, since the application of wireless value-added
service hadn¡¯t been popularized completely, it had to enhance
its influence and attraction with the help of the popularity of
the attractive films and adopted the contents of the films as
much as possible under the feasible technical conditions. The
consumers only experienced cinematic entertainment through wireless
value-added service unitarily, and the cooperation between the
two industries proved to be a unidirectional one.
In 2004 when Mtone Wireless cooperated with Huayi Brother for
the film A World without Thieves, the industrial environment began
to be developed further, and the application of wireless value-added
service was expanded gradually. WAP website, IVR, mobile phone
multimedia (including color rings, multimedia short film) began
to be popularized gradually among mobile phone users. During the
period when the film A World without Thieves was on show, Mtone
Wireless gained huge profits by introducing service items such
as downloading stills of the film, downloading short passage of
the film and original voice of the film as color rings or rings
of mobile phones. Wang Weijia said: ¡°In this period, the consumers
can experience cinematic entertainment through wireless value-added
service in many ways, and the by-industries of wireless value-added
service constitute a very important part of film industry. The
wireless cinematic entertainment service business established
by us in cooperation with Huayi Brother begin to be expanded gradually
¡±
As for the income obtained from SP, some film companies such
as Huayi Brother haven¡¯t taken it seriously, but more and more
SP offer to cooperate with film companies. Wang Zhongjun says
that when some films are still at the planning stage, many SP
will provide their detailed plans about value-added service and
apply for bidding for authorization of the film contents. Almost
every popular film¡¯s added value will be processed and developed
by SP partners. The cooperation between internet and film industry
becomes more intensive gradually.
Diversified cooperation
From the introduction of color rings and games during the period
of the film Mobile Phone, the introduction of various downloading
service items during the period of the film A World without Thieves,
to the introduction of the Java mobile phone game A Chinese Odyssey
during the period of the film A Chinese Tale Story, SP is developing
the contents of the films more and more intensively, and the cooperation
with film suppliers becomes more diversified.
¡°Beginning from 2005, the wireless value-added business broke
through the traditional mode of obtaining and processing contents
of the films unilaterally and began to get involved in the early-stage
work of promotion and publicity¡± Wang Weijia introduces that in
cooperation with the company for the film A Chinese Tale Story,
by summarizing the former experience in cooperating with Huayi
Brother, Mtone not only made preparations for film promotion and
contents publication but also introduced a mobile phone online
game with same name based on the contents of the film, which is
a second mobile phone online game developed by Mtone Wireless.
Wang Weijia says: ¡°The introduction of the mobile phone online
games with the same name can not only enhance the influence of
the film but also prolong the life span of the images of the characters.¡±
Wang Weijia also says that along with the popularity of music
mobile phones, we will introduce film music and video service
items, and we my make music MV for mobile phones as well as two-to
three-minute humorous short passage based on the contents of the
films in the future. In short, there will be a large space for
creation.
Wang Zhongjun says that wireless internet, as a most influential
media channel may exert a great influence on film industry in
the future: First, SP can assist the company to promote the by-products
of the films according to the publicity strategies of the film
producer; second, the mobile phones can be regarded as an excellent
advertising media, and the short messaged and color messages provide
new concepts and communicating channels for publicity of the films;
finally, previously, the film industry mainly got investment returns
from tickets, audio, video and televisions due to its fixed releasing
mode, but along with the shrinkage of the traditional releasing
channels for films and televisions in recent years, the whole
film industry is making slow progress. To film investors, it can
reduce costs to utilize mobile communication resources to expand
releasing channels, and this novel and fashionable releasing channel
can extend publicity to a large mobile user group.
Wang Weijia holds that in this 25G times, along with the popularity
of color-screen mobile phones, the application of mobile phones
especially the value-added business of mobile phones will enter
into the multimedia times completely, which can provide unlimited
possibility for SP to develop film resources. As for 3G times,
the higher-level broad band will bring more profits to SP. Wang
Weijia says: ¡°the mobile phone will be the most important individual
entertainment terminal, and in 3G times, how to integrate wireless
internet which is a convenient channel to contact users with entertainment
industry, how to promote, and how to form a reasonable industrial
chain will be a common problem which should be concerned about
by SP and entertainment industry.¡±
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