news - Mainland Artists' Fees Inflation, Producers Favor TVB Artists.

内地演员片酬飞涨 制作方偏爱TVB艺人 sina entertainment.com
2012年06月13日05:11  东方早报记者 骆俊澎

Paraphrasing only Steven related news
Gist: Mainland tv producers considered TVB artists to be more cost-effective, professional, and hard-working; and compare to their counterpart mainland artists, less troublesome, moreover, TVB artists as topics can be used as a publicity tool. Because of the rapidly escalating fees of mainland (elite) artists, the production companies now favor tvb artists.

Yesterday, Shanghai 18th TV Festival entered its 2nd day. The theme activities commenced with the successive opening of the TV programs trade show, and the Magnolia Forum. The hot topic of the forum this year is the skyrocketing fees of the mainland elite artists that have the film production companies and buyers alike lamenting. Yesterday the tv programs trade shows highlighted the vicious circle -because smaller film production companies cannot afford the artists' astronomical fees in proportion to their production costs, under pressure they elected to leave the television circle. And video websites, in an effort to circumvent the rising royalties to series, have opted to buy the broadcasting rights as a group network or as re-runs syndication. However, the astronomical mainland artists fees inadvertently created many opportunities for the TVB artists. In yesterday trade show the presence of TVB troop brightly 'lighted up' the festival starlight.

To counter the high fees of mainland artists, many production companies have begun using the cheaper but high quality TVB artists, this phenomenon is especially obvious in this Shanghai TV Festival.

Yesterday in the trade show, the presence of TVB artists was pervasive. There were Myolie Wu and Charmaine Sheh, Kevin Cheng, Bobby Au Yeung, Bosco Wong, and Steven Ma, plus TVB's own War and Beauty II cast members: Moses Chan, Ada Choi, all came to promote their series in their respective booths. If didn't know any better one would have thought Shanghai TV Festival was TVB "Anniversary Gala" instead