Several entertainment companies from Taiwan and Hong Kong yesterday announced that they had formed a business alliance to launch a new talent show to search for the Chinese-speaking world’s next big star.
Taiwan’s Uni-Star Entertainment Media Broadcasting, United Communication Group and Fanghe Advertising are to launch the television show this year along with Hong Kong’s S Entertainment.
The show will be open to participants from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macau, and the winner will be offered a NT$1 million (US$33,800) contract, receive professional training and be featured in television shows and advertisements, executives from the companies said.
A total of NT$60 million is to be invested to produce the show and to cover other expenses, S Entertainment associate director Freeman Lam (林霆鋒) told media in Taipei.
He added that his firm, which is a talent agency, is also seeking to become a publicly traded company in Hong Kong by the end of this year or early next year.
“We hope to combine the strength of the four entertainment agencies under the alliance,” TV personality and Uni-Star Entertainment general manager Belle Yu (于美人) said.
She said she hoped that the joint venture would equip the show’s winner to become a player on the international stage.
Yu said more details about the show and the alliance are to be announced after the Lunar New Year.
Fanghe Advertising chairman Jerry Fan (范可欽) also stressed the importance of pooling the companies’ resources.
He said that the diverse cultures, languages, performing styles cultural and creative environments of Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macau offer a unique advantage in the search for and nurturing of the next international star.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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