In China’s increasingly competitive yet still highly regulated television industry, Hunan TV from the inland and traditionally agrarian Hunan Province has emerged as Chinese television’s greatest underdog success story. Armed with few resources but a seemingly endless supply of big ideas, Hunan TV’s rapid development over the last decade is responsible for an array of industry breakthroughs (to name a few, pioneering the art of branding television media products, establishing the importance of ratings as the main index of a media organization’s competitiveness, and being the first Chinese television station to create business partnerships with Taiwanese television stations) and continues to push the limits of television broadcasting in China.
After a hugely successful preliminary five-year run on the international Chinese satellite television package Great Wall Network in the North American and other markets, Hunan TV took another giant leap into unmarked territory on May 20, 2009, when Hunan TV World officially began broadcasting its signal to Hong Kong and became the first Chinese television station to enter a foreign market as an independent media entity, boasting an unprecedented private-business-run- (and not directly government-run-) business model.
This paper explores the “how” behind Hunan TV’s success and what it means for Hunan TV World’s prospects in the unforgiving global market. Using the story behind Hunan TV World’s development, I hope to show that rooted underneath these phenomena lies a unique local cultural environment that allows Hunan to transcend its monetary constraints and drives Hunan TV and Hunan TV World’s success.