If anyone still needs a reminder, mainland China’s absolute power was on full and glorious display at this year’s Filmart in Hong Kong in March. Film, of course, brought out the biggest cameras, the largest hordes and the most security. But TV didn’t do too shabby a job of whipping up a crowd of its own. Not a week before, China’s sporting energy drove discussion during SportelAsia in Singapore, where delegates talked about (yes, still) the insane amounts of money involved in sports rights, initiatives to create home-grown and wholly owned properties, and the mainland appetite for every sporting activity imaginable.

Inside the beast, mainland content producers are candid about the sometimes crazy state of production, the challenges they face, and the bright side of operating in a market still in high-investment mode.

In a nuts-and-bolts opening-day discussion on navigating the Chinese market, Ciwen Media’s chairman/president, Ma Zhong Jun, told delegates that “it’s still early days in China”. “We are still star- and actor-centric. If the actor chooses to leave, the story won’t hold,” he said, favouring a more sustainable “mature and established” U.S.-style system that revolves around producers/show-runners, strong IP, and franchise development.

“We have a lot of limitations and challenges,” added Croton Cultural Media Co’s executive president, Liu Zhi, who emphasised brand importance and awareness. “We need to design the trajectory of the development of the IP. We need more planning,” he said.

Despite the power of streaming platforms and the widespread obsession with short-form content, traditional television structures hold strong in the premium global distribution market.

iQIYI vice president, Chen Xiao, described current times as “the best moments. Although we have a lot of challenges, the market is also filled with opportunities”. For all the innovation though, there’s also some back-peddling to well-worn habits. Chen said early experiments with short-form originals had to be re-edited into the more globally accepted 45-minute format. “45 minutes is common in the world, it’s universally recognised. In the future, it might be a different standard. [But for now] we want to standardise the length of the episodes for Chinese markets and overseas,” he said.

Daylight Entertainment president, Hou Hong Liang, spoke up for market-driven adjustments and corrections in, for instance, the cost of talent. He also came out strongly for industry self-monitoring and correction. “We can pay the salaries actors deserve, but we need to demand good performance,” he said, adding that unqualified teams in both production and platforms would be eliminated against a backdrop of rapid development, dramatic expansion and intense competition. “It’s not about regulation or price [caps] or quotas. This is market behaviour. In the coming years, we will see the price adjusting accordingly,” he said.

Somewhere in there is the emergence of a media mega regulator that combines all previous regulators. How might this change the environment? Regulations, other regulations and changing regulations are not an unfamiliar state. For now, at least publicly, more attention is focused on high-action elsewhere, including iQIYI’s US$2.4-billion-US$2.7 billion IPO, launched in New York on the eve of Filmart. iQIYI says half the money raised will be spent on content.

On the market floor in Hong Kong, iQIYI’s Chen spoke about a united effort to benefit the entire industry. “How can we improve ourselves together?”, he asked. “For the TV market, we are serving a new market with new content. In the coming years, we will have more partners. The water is deep, it’s not just about competition, about ourselves, it’s about all of us. We are serving something bigger – a global audience, a stronger China audience. Although we are losing money, we are not afraid. We are moving forward.”