On August 15, Guangdong held a symposium on implementing the online audiovisual industry policy package. The province will focus on six key directions to transform its previously released policy "gift package" into a catalyst for industrial development, attracting excellent online audiovisual projects to Guangdong and achieving high-quality development of the online audiovisual industry.

During the 21st China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair this year, Guangdong released "Several Policy Measures to Promote High-Quality Development of Guangdong's Online Audiovisual Industry." The policy emphasizes leveraging the "dual audiovisual engine" driving effect, with specific measures including building Guangzhou into a "Global Live Streaming Capital" and Shenzhen into a "Global Digital Intelligent Audiovisual Innovation Capital," providing increased financial support and enhancing industrial park development capabilities.

Following this announcement, relevant cities in Guangdong have introduced supporting policies to strengthen industrial layout and attract enterprises. Leading domestic platforms, industrial parks, and key institutions have come to Guangdong for cooperation discussions. Companies like iQiyi and Xiaohongshu have landed projects in the region, while Greater Bay Area enterprises have strengthened collaborative partnerships, creating a more vibrant innovation and entrepreneurship atmosphere across the province.

However, the domestic online audiovisual industry still faces numerous challenges. In terms of content quality and creativity, AIGC technology-generated content quality and creativity need improvement, with issues including insufficient content depth, logical confusion, and lack of uniqueness. Regarding copyright and ethical issues, AIGC technology involves copyright disputes, and generated content may contain false information, discriminatory language, and privacy violations. In terms of technology dependence and risk management, the industry's increasing reliance on AIGC technology may face risks including cyberattacks, data breaches, and technical failures.

Against this backdrop, the symposium revealed how Guangdong plans to develop its online audiovisual industry with high quality. Guangdong proposes to deeply explore the "rich mines" of Lingnan culture, focusing on supporting distinctive tracks like interactive micro-dramas and trendy animation. The goal is to make Lingnan cultural symbols such as Cantonese opera and lion dance reach younger audiences through more fashionable and appealing formats. The province will also promote ecological innovation by exploring new consumption models combining "live streaming + social media + finance," upgrading live streaming from merely "selling products" to "transmitting culture" and "optimizing services."

**Guangdong's Online Audiovisual Revenue Accounts for 1/7 of National Total**

As a "new track" in the digital economy and "strong engine" for cultural innovation, online audiovisual content has broad development prospects. Last year, China's online audiovisual industry market size exceeded 1.22 trillion yuan, with user scale reaching 1.091 billion. Online audiovisual content has become like "digital air," integrating into the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people. New technologies such as intelligent algorithms and AIGC are profoundly changing the industrial ecosystem, with new scenarios and consumption patterns emerging continuously.

As a major online audiovisual province, Guangdong's related revenue last year accounted for 1/7 of the national total, growing nearly 40% year-on-year, demonstrating strong development momentum, bursting market vitality, accelerated technological updates, and enhanced overseas expansion capabilities.

Specifically, Guangdong has established a complete and robust industrial chain, creating leading enterprises and cultivating diverse top-tier platform matrices across content creation, platform distribution, technology R&D, traffic operations, and terminal manufacturing. Tencent Video and WeChat Video lead the long and short video sectors, YY and Huya dominate the live streaming track, while QQ Music and Kugou Music serve as benchmarks in online music, providing a solid foundation and prominent advantages for further provincial development.

Wang Xiao, Party Secretary and Director of Guangdong Provincial Radio and Television Bureau, mentioned that the "China (Guangdong) Ultra-High Definition Television Pioneer Action Plan" cooperation memorandum signed in August last year by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, National Radio and Television Administration, China Media Group, and the provincial government has promoted the accelerated construction of Smart Audiovisual (Live Streaming, Guangzhou) Cloud Industrial Park and Smart Audiovisual (Digital Media, Zhuhai) Cloud Industrial Park.

The initiative has also promoted the designation of South China University of Technology and Shenzhen University as supporting units for the "Ultra-High Definition Technology Innovation and Application Key Laboratory of the National Radio and Television Administration," optimizing the "1+N" audiovisual industrial park incubation system. Additionally, it has promoted the construction of "Bay Area International Digital Intelligent Audiovisual Service Valley" and "Bay Area International Creator Ecosystem Valley," guiding cities like Foshan, Maoming, and Dongguan in building differentiated provincial-level parks and bases.

The Guangdong Provincial Radio and Television Bureau has also guided Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and other cities in optimizing industrial investment layouts and audiovisual industrial base incubation conditions. It has guided Gaozhou City in Maoming to use micro-dramas to empower the "Millions Project," constructing a "micro-drama + agriculture" development model, striving to create the country's first brand. The bureau has also promoted the landing of over a dozen leading film and television enterprises in Guangdong, with over 40 major enterprises in the domestic television drama field having established companies in Guangdong, with related projects accelerating.

At the symposium, representatives from key Guangdong enterprises expressed confidence in the province's online audiovisual industry. "Guangdong's policies provide substantial support, and we are currently working with relevant parties to help Gaozhou in Maoming build the nation's first 'agriculture-focused' micro-drama village," said Huang Jibo, head of CCTV.com Platform Center Guangdong Branch.

"iQiyi is actively promoting collaboration with upstream and downstream industrial chains, having landed four immersive theaters within Guangdong Province. Meanwhile, the iQiyi Park project is also actively advancing in South China," said Wang Liang, Executive Editor-in-Chief of iQiyi.

"TikTok settled in Guangdong in 2017, promoting Guangdong lychees, Guangzhou flowers, Chaozhou tea, and other specialty products through celebrity visits, special promotions, source live streaming sales, supply chain supervision, and traffic incentives. We will further cultivate in Guangdong, embrace policies, and leverage platform traffic to tell Bay Area stories and assist Guangdong's live streaming e-commerce economic development," introduced Chen Xun, TikTok Group's Guangdong Public Affairs Director.

"In the future, Xiaohongshu will leverage Guangdong's policy package advantages to build a deep collaborative mechanism for the Greater Bay Area's online audiovisual industry, focusing on creating a digital content ecosystem community and actively cooperating with micro-drama production institutions in Guangdong," said Fang Shuang, Vice General Manager of Public Affairs at Xiaohongshu.

**Transforming Policy "Gift Package" into Industrial Development Catalyst**

While Guangdong has confidence and opportunities to strengthen and optimize its online audiovisual industry, it also faces bottlenecks and challenges. Participating enterprises mentioned that currently, Guangdong faces prominent bottleneck issues including insufficient supply of original quality online audiovisual content, weak collaborative capabilities between upstream and downstream industrial chains, and ineffective transformation of technology R&D results. Traditional development models also face transformation challenges.

Under the policy "gift package," how should Guangdong further seize opportunities for development? "Future platforms will have more quality program content based on Lingnan characteristics. We hope for more special incentive policies and financial support to jointly promote Guangdong's online video industry clustering toward new heights," suggested Zhang Heng, Editor-in-Chief of Tencent Video.

Zuo Ningning, Director of Government Affairs at LiFont Culture, believes that looking toward future industrial development, it's recommended to combine Guangdong's profound historical and cultural heritage through government leadership, enterprise participation, and market-oriented operations to create classic audiovisual cultural tourism benchmark projects, promoting the integrated innovative development of audiovisual + culture technology, while accelerating the formulation of industry standard construction in emerging audiovisual-related fields to ensure technological compatibility and market standardization.

Looking ahead, Guangdong's online audiovisual industry will target industrial development "shortcomings," focusing efforts in six directions to transform the policy "gift package" into an industrial development catalyst.

A relevant official from Guangdong Provincial Party Committee Propaganda Department stated that Guangdong will focus on content quality improvement, deeply exploring Lingnan cultural "rich mines," innovating presentation techniques, and establishing industrial thinking. Additionally, it will strengthen technological empowerment, strengthen ultra-high-definition industrial clusters, optimize intelligent audiovisual ecosystems, and deepen immersive experience scenarios.

Furthermore, the province will promote ecological innovation, make strategic moves in industrial chain layout, improve full-chain service systems, and build a global live streaming economic belt. Notably, Guangdong will also promote Bay Area collaboration, build Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao cooperation "bridges," create content overseas expansion "first stations," and stimulate innovation vitality among the younger generation.

In terms of talent cultivation, Guangdong will precisely "recruit talent," deepen industry-education integration, and optimize growth environments.

At the meeting, enterprises unanimously expressed that this symposium has once again built broad consensus for promoting high-quality development of Guangdong's online audiovisual industry. Moving forward, Guangdong will continue promoting deep integration of culture and technology, facilitating Bay Area industrial collaborative innovation development, and increasing online audiovisual talent cultivation efforts, using more powerful measures to quickly transform the policy "gift package" into a "catalyst" for online audiovisual industry development, adding new momentum to cultural industry prosperity and development.