Festival calls for higher quality

Industry veterans at the Shanghai International Film and TV Festival have highlighted the need for high-quality content as the online film and movie industry grows. 

Data released at an Internet summit at the festival showed there are 725 million online video users in China, 87.5 percent of the total number of Internet users. The market size of the online audio-visual content industry is 18.71 billion yuan (US$2.7 billion), an increase of 52.8 percent from a year earlier. 

With technological innovation such as the use of 5G and VR, the quality of online content is expected to improve. Stricter industry policies and the integration of online and traditional platforms also encourage higher-quality content. 

Video platform providers are also working toward providing quality content. 

“By setting up the largest artificial intelligence review team in China, Toutiao.com strives to help content creators create good content and filter out the poorer ones,” said Hong Fei, a content manager with the company.

Huang Jue, deputy editor-in-chief of Tencent Video, said: “We want to move away from undesirable content that may be heavily marketed or of excessive entertainment value.” 

With the rapid development of the online film industry, video platforms should be more socially responsible, according to industry professionals at the summit.

“The type of content should revolve around the cultural needs of the consumer and reflect society’s progress,” said Chen Xiao, vice president of iQiyi. “Video platform providers should establish a healthy and orderly environment in the industry.”