Observation and Thinking of Datong Professional Editor on Datong TV Profession

Datong TV Station is one of the main news media units in Datong, which has many functions such as news propaganda, public opinion supervision, reflecting people's livelihood, serving the economy, entertainment and education. It shoulders a great historical mission. We should be responsible to the municipal party Committee and municipal government, serve all fronts and serve the broad masses of the people. As a city TV station, how to keep pace with the times and grow stronger in the fierce competition environment is a problem that every TV worker thinks about.

First, the rapid development of TV industry makes the development of city TV stations like Datong TV Station lag behind.

Since the establishment of Beijing TV, the first TV station in China, CCTV, provincial TV stations, prefecture-level TV stations and county-level TV stations have been established one after another. By the early 1990s, TV coverage in China had expanded rapidly, which was a period of rapid development of various TV stations. At that time, CCTV and provincial TV stations were transmitted to users' homes through point-to-point microwave transmission, and then broadcast by local TV stations. During this period, you can only see a set of CCTV programs, a set of provincial TV programs and a set of local TV programs in a city. Local TV stations have high ratings (because there are only a few stations to choose from) and good advertising revenue. At that time, Datong TV station also had advertising revenue, which was quite easy for a small station with only a few dozen people. 1993 Datong TV Station became the first batch of self-supporting units approved by the municipal government of Datong City (before the merger of cities and prefectures) (1993 Datong TV Station earned more than 4 million advertising revenue, until 1999, the advertising revenue reached 8 million, far exceeding the business funds allocated to TV stations by the Municipal Finance Bureau. At that time, self-support was one of the things that TV stations were very satisfied with and admired. With the development of TV industry, since TV programs began to be uploaded to satellites for national broadcast, CCTV has taken the lead in expanding and building a central-level TV media carrier, from one program to 12 programs and other digital encrypted channels jointly operated by China International Television Company and other units. Then, the provincial TV station became a satellite channel for national broadcasting, and the provincial TV station increased the channels to spread to the whole province. After several years of development, we can now receive five programs at home through cable TV. In this way, the ratings of our local TV stations will be relatively reduced, the income will be reduced, and the career development will lag behind. For CCTV, it's not that we don't develop, but that people are too powerful, which is an irresistible objective existence. However, these objective factors must not be an excuse for us to hold back or retreat. Instead, we should find a breakthrough from our own environment, give full play to our own advantages, break through the tight encirclement, build our own brand and become a well-known and successful mainstream media in the local area.

Second, channel specialization and local characteristics are the way out for TV stations.

CCTV and provincial satellite TV have brought heavy pressure to our local TV stations. How can we survive in this environment? We must see the difference between big media and us. CCTV and provincial satellite stations have incomparable advantages for us, such as high level, strong production team and wide spread, but they are also far from our locals. For example, some programs are filmed and recorded in remote places, and we can't understand a word of their dialect, so we can only understand it by reading words. On the contrary, our local TV station is close to our audience, and the stories told in the column may be our neighbors, Aunt Zhang and Aunt Li. They speak authentic local dialects, and the programs they make exude a strong local flavor and reveal a real emotion, which is our great regional advantage. If we can make a program with distinctive local characteristics and strong local characteristics, it will be warmly sought after and praised by the audience. It can be seen that a part is enough to create a living space. Local programs have found a breakthrough for the survival and development of local TV stations, but how to play well? There must be a supporting point to give full play to its characteristics, which leads to a problem of program setting and channel architecture. At present, all kinds of TV stations in China have set up professional channels, and channel specialization has become an indisputable fact in theory and practice. In fact, we have already carried out a professional division of labor, but it is not in place. Datong TV Station currently has three channels: news integration, film and television, and life. The news comprehensive channel has a comprehensive "hodgepodge" of news, social education, variety show and film and television drama. It can be said to be in a comprehensive sense. Film and television channels, as the name implies, are mainly movies and TV series, plus a nondescript news express. (It's natural to set up film and television reports or related film and television programs in the film and television channel, but adding a "news through train" to the film and television channel is not unrelated to the film and television channel, so it's neither fish nor fowl), and another is that contracted advertisers set up a "love life" column, which seems to be far from the positioning of the film and television channel. Life channel, which basically has no life column, mainly focuses on TV advertisements and adds a so-called "city news", which is quite different from the positioning of the channel. According to the current division of channels, who can tell clearly which audiences these three channels, especially the last two channels, are set up for? The target audience is not clear. At present, the main work of Datong is economic construction, but there is no economic channel and economic column in the channel and program setting of our station. Isn't this a great pity? The life channel also exists in name only. So how can we change the status quo and make the channel setting more scientific and reasonable? Let's try to explore whether this setting is suitable for reference. A set of programs is a comprehensive news channel, with news, social education, variety, film and television as the main body, focusing on playing politics and policy cards, focusing on serving the municipal party Committee and government, and highlighting politics. Both programs are economic channels, focusing on economy, serving economic construction and highlighting its economy. The three programs are life service channels (or people's life channels), with life service programs as the main body, serving the broad masses of the people and highlighting their service. If the resources of radio and television system are integrated, several cable channels can be added as auxiliary channels, such as shopping channels, film and television channels, consulting service channels and so on. Three main channels and several auxiliary channels have constructed a brand-new pattern of Datong TV channels, laying a framework and foundation for the rapid development of Datong TV industry.

Third, a reasonable program composition is a strong support for channel specialization.

The accuracy of channel positioning depends on the reasonable composition of the programs under the jurisdiction of the channel. How to make the program more reasonable, we must first straighten out the management system of the program. If we want to take the road of channel specialization, we must take the channel as the guide and change the management system from the original horizontal management system to the vertical management system. For example, news comprehensive channels must highlight news, including dynamic news programs and in-depth news commentary programs. News commentary program reflects the theoretical level of a news unit and should be the pillar of news comprehensive channel. At present, our in-depth news commentary is seriously inadequate and needs to be enriched, and so on. In addition, large-scale event programs should be carried out according to the channel specialty, so that programs and channels can be organically combined to form a pattern that programs set off channels and channels dominate programs, so that viewers can have a clear viewing orientation, lock in what channels and programs they like, form a fixed audience, build a group of loyal audiences and win higher ratings.

Fourth, fully understand the channel resources, mass production in time, and effectively avoid a lot of waste of people, money and materials.

If we want to push TV career to a new height, we must adhere to the principle that politicians run Taiwan Province, TV experts do programs and entrepreneurs run Taiwan Province. In the first two aspects, I think the leader of our station is political, and our director also has high news business ability. What I want to emphasize here is that we should fully understand the channel resources from the perspective of entrepreneurs, fully understand that every time the channel generates value, and prevent unnecessary waste caused by the deviation of layout and ideas. At present, there are three news departments in our station, with 70 or 80 employees. I think it is also one of the more prefecture-level city stations in China. The expenses of news organizations (including the salary of the person in charge, video equipment, office expenses, car transportation expenses, etc.). ) It is also millions of the whole year. In fact, from the perspective of specialized channels, it is enough to set up a news department in the news comprehensive channel and run a news broadcast. There is absolutely no need to set up news departments and news columns repeatedly on channels 2 and 3. If these two news departments are removed, it will not only save time, but also save the expenses paid for it. Transferring the saved personnel to other types of programs not only increases the content of the channel column, but also increases the income for the channel. Isn't this the best of both worlds? As far as social education programs are concerned, there are currently three categories: self-run columns, joint columns and activity programs. Self-run columns, including Image of Datong, News Observation and Charm of Pingcheng, all appear in the form of a single program, which is broadcast every other week, which is not a continuous viewing habit among the audience and lacks depth and influence. The simulcast program is a series of columns jointly organized by some functional departments and our station. Major programs, such as Datong politics and law, Datong discipline inspection, Datong private economy, Datong coal mine safety, proposal tracking, and 12345 hotline, are also released every other week, and their contents basically report the industry trends of the department, which is not of universal significance to the audience. As far as funds are concerned, the contribution of the co-organizers is only a subsidy bonus for the production of the program, and the salaries of producers and Taiwanese directors must be paid by Taiwan. This way of co-organizing programs is that Taiwan Province has time to release people and channels, but Taiwan Province has no income. I think this way of co-organizing needs to be further explored. Therefore, we should pay close attention to the channel time, rationally develop and utilize it, determine the output according to the length of time, examine and approve the development of channel resources, and create the maximum benefits.

Five, the introduction of cost accounting, operating TV according to economic laws.

At present, our TV station is a news unit and belongs to the nature of business. At the same time, we are a self-supporting organization. This is a horse-to-horse system, which requires us to face up to this system, clarify our own identity, introduce modern enterprise management system in a timely manner, follow economic laws, adhere to the principles of macro-control and micro-activation, and operate television in an industrialized way. The so-called macro grasp is to calculate the cost of program production, technical support and logistics services, evaluate the value of each time period in terms of channels, and effectively use and develop channel resources. The so-called micro-activation means that under the scientific and reasonable macro-layout, the relations of production are properly adjusted, the productive forces are liberated to the maximum extent, every post is activated, the effect of making the best use of everything and people is achieved, and the benefits are maximized.

Sixth, expand TV channels, broaden income-generating channels, and let financial resources roll in.

Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, China has entered an era of rapid development, especially the economic system with ownership by the whole people as the main body and a variety of non-public economies coexisting, which has brought about earth-shaking changes in China's comprehensive strength and people's living standards. The development of our TV industry should also broaden TV vision, open up income-generating channels, and create an income-generating pattern with advertising as the main body and multiple income-generating channels coexisting. Advertising revenue should be unified and divided, unified and divided, and transferred by auction. After so many years of tempering, we have both successful experiences and failed lessons. Other income-generating methods other than advertising are: ① non-advertising channel column sponsorship income. Investors can be economic strategic cooperation units, non-operating administrative institutions, large enterprises, etc. (2) TV media derivatives generate secondary income, that is, TV trading companies, TV direct selling companies and TV travel companies are established on the platform of TV non-prime time (such as day and midnight) and supported by time. (3) Using the hardware advantages of TV transmission to generate income, mobile TV companies, building TV companies and mobile TV companies can be established through favorable transmission conditions. (4) Make use of the brand and talent advantages of TV stations to jointly establish the tertiary industry with other businesses, such as radio and television training centers and public consultation service centers. Through advertising as the main body and various channels to generate income, the financial resources of our radio and television industry are rolling in, benefiting the people of the city and radio and television people.