Technology advances are powering the upgrade of China's traditional cultural industries and helped create new business models that are reliant on digital content consumption, said a China Daily report on Tuesday.
Most of the cultural and related industries across China saw year-on-year growth of 8.2 percent in revenue last year, compared with 10.8 percent in 2017 and 7.5 percent in 2016, according to a National Bureau of Statistics survey.
Revenue from the news and information services industry grew 24 percent year-on-year. "The growth in news and information services was largely driven by internet information services," Wei Pengju, director of the institute of cultural economics at the Beijing-based Central University of Finance and Economics, was quoted as saying.
On the contrary, offline recreational services such as karaoke and amusement parks saw demands drop as more consumers started opting for digital content.
According to Wei, such a divergence reflects the tech-driven restructuring of China's cultural industries - cultural industries integrated with digital technologies have seen high growth, while some traditional ones have slackened amid economic slowdown and changing consumer preferences.
With breakthroughs in 5G technologies, other technologies such as VR and augmented reality will also see broad applications. "This may enable consumers to use VR headsets at home to experience the same visual and sound effects as in movie theaters, bringing about great potential in online movie consumption and reforms in the movie theater industry," Wei said.
