The Exploratory Study On System Reform And Capital Operation Of Media Industry In China

A tremendous media market has come into being after over 20 years of reform and open-up. Media industry is becoming a vigorous one like the rising sun, and its speed of growing is much faster than that of GNP. Since 1998, its total profits tax has exceeded that of tobacco industry and it has become the fourth pillar industry of China. At the same time, with China's entry into WTO, Chinese media entities have to get in close touch with international media groups. Facing the fierce capital and market competition, where is media industry's way out in the future? That is a strategic topic worthy of further research.The development process of successful international media groups shows that none of them can grow up and prosper without some means of capital operation such as acquisition or merger. The writer thinks that China's media entities, whose comprehensive power is relatively weak, in front of the information and economic globalization, have to engage in capital operation so that they can develop at the fastest speed and achieve strategic leaping. Only in this way, can China's media entities show their own vigorous energy and power in the fierce competition with strong international media groups and guarantee China's political and cultural security as well as economic security.Although China's media industry has made great progress in capital operation in the recent years, there are still a series of obstacles, which hinder the rapid growth of China's media industry and make itself lag behind developed countries' mediaindustry. The main obstacles are as follows: In the first place, as for the macro aspect of administration system, China's government intervention on media industry remains the character of planning economy and leads it to a disordered predicament, including non-separation between government and enterprises, non-separation between government and capital, ambiguity of property rights, overlapping of administration and regional separation. In the second place, as for the micro aspect of media entities' capital operation, their management has been far away from maturity. For instance, their operation idea is distorted; their management structure is irrational in a sense; and they lack experienced managers, etc. All these problems restrict media industry's smooth operation and its function so severely that they must be uprooted. In other words, it is time for China to reform the current media industry system, and media entities should grope for new capital operation strategies as soon as possible. It is to be mentioned that the system reform and capital operation of media industry not only have common characteristics but also have its own specific characteristics compared with other industries.On the base of defining Chinese media's attribute and current status, this paper emphasizes the necessity and feasibility of strengthening capital operation of media industry; at the same time, it debates some different opinions on capital operation. Then it makes a great effort to illustrate the necessities of government intervention and the negative influences it causes. Moreover, it points out the main obstacles in the course of capital operation. Finally, the writer puts forward the necessity and urgency of reforming media industry's administration system. Furthermore, the writer rectifies the government's current roles in capital operation of media industry and makes an exploratory study on the direction of government departments' functions transformation and media industry system reform. In addition, the writer makes a further exploration on the guiding principles and concrete strategies of media industry's capital operation in the future. These strategies include encouraging state-owned capital, folk capital and foreign capital to enter into media industry to achieve the pluralism of investment and motivate the development of media industry altogether; forming a capital operation pattern of cross-media, cross-industry,cross-region and cross-nation; maintaining its own core business and carrying out diversification strategy; and engaging in intangible capital operation. The writer expects that the above point of views could shed light on capital operation of China's media industry and promote the achievement of economic benefit and social efficiency.