Shanghai Media Group's Documentary Channel to go nationwide

Shanghai television channels and well-known websites announced their plans today at the ongoing 20th Shanghai TV Festival.

Shanghai Media Group's Documentary Channel said it will begin nationwide broadcasts on June 16.

"It is a significant move to expand our audience and gather documentary filmmaking and marketing talents together on this wider platform," said Gan Chao, director of Documentary Channel.

Last year the channel produced 760 hours of programs. It will air both domestic and foreign documentary series and films covering a wide range of genres including history, nature and the humanities.

New productions to be shown include a nature series about Tibet, a historical documentary film titled "Maritime Silk Road" and a film about Chinese food culture.

Meanwhile, Dragon TV will collaborate with Alibaba Group in content development, marketing and e-commerce. Dragon TV's reality shows are expected to inspire new video games and interactive software and apps.

The number of Internet users in China reached 618 million at the end of 2013.

One of the biggest trends at this year's festival, which ends on Friday, is the ambition of video-sharing websites to produce more of their own content.

Officials from V.qq.com said this year they will air around 500 episodes of original content including season one of "Death Notify," a suspense thriller about a serial murder case.