Market trends

Liu says an encouraging change that may be positive for the dubbing industry is ownership reform, which will benefit some State-owned enterprises, such as his studio.

According to the latest policy unveiled by the municipal government, private investors are welcomed to participate in State-owned enterprises.

"This is obviously an opportunity for the Shanghai Film Dubbing Studio, and we will work on a plan for our future development and turn that into reality in the coming years," Liu says.

According to Liu, under a mixed ownership, the studio will be able to better respond to market demands to realize voice acting and its chain industries' real value.

This is also good news for voice actors, who will be able to command higher salaries if they prove to have cache in the marketplace.

According to Liu, the studio dubbing a foreign movie can only make 50,000 yuan, which is far below the market standard.

"In a market-oriented situation, the production should generate at least ten times more than that figure," says Liu.

In more than six decades, the Shanghai Film Dubbing Studio has dubbed over 1,600 foreign movies from 49 countries.

Liu says dubbing films is not the only work his studio can do.

China is still developing the audio book industry but Liu already sees great potential in this market. He is thinking of working with car manufacturers so that audio books can become part of the fixed installations in cars, even before they are sold, and they can follow up with paid downloads of a library of audiobooks.

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