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The audio-visual sector covers the industries of film, broadcasting (television and radio), video and multimedia and it is distinguished from creative industry or content industry which involves substantial artistic or creative endeavors (European Investment Bank, 2001). Originating from the notion of audio-visual sector, network audio-visual industry is composed of audio-visual content works on the telecom, broadcast network and Internet; however, the authors particularly mainly focus on the audio-visual industrial development, pertinent media policies and regulations on the broadcast network and Internet portals. The network audio-visual industry in China has obtained an increasing scale of users and established platforms, together with new technological development and commercial flourishment. By June 2018, there are 609 million network video users in China who occupied 76% of the total Internet users, with a half-year growth rate of 5.2% (China Knowledge, 2018). The audio-visual industry in China has been significantly driven by entrepreneurial forces by advancing and applying technological progress, particularly 5G, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality, to new audio-visual business since 2015, such as live streaming, eSports and short video.
In view of the scope of network audio-visual entrepreneurship, we clarify the research domain in this study based on prior endeavors of conceptualizing entrepreneurship and media entrepreneurship. Davidsson (2005) suggested delineating the role of entrepreneurship in society and defined entrepreneurship phenomenon as competitive behavior driving the market process. Media entrepreneurship as a set of evolving entrepreneurial practices has also received research interests and gained momentum in recent years (Hang & van Weezel, 2007). Khajeheian (2017) integrated some key features of the emerging media environment such as distinction of content and platform, value delivery, opportunity development, non-monetary benefit into the definition. In this article, we will contribute to understanding the network audio-visual entrepreneurship at the corporate level. In this sense, two categories of media companies providing network audio-visual service are identified as the analysis objects in China’s media market, namely the newly created media enterprises, the Internet conglomerates combining resources and having an impact on the market. The predominant media conglomerates in China among more than 200 audio-visual enterprises are iQIYI, Youku and Tencent Video, owned by the three largest internet companies in China, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent respectively. The three internet corporations are conceived as financially resourced, distinctively competitive and technologically innovative players in network audio-visual industry, in comparison with other premium network firms and traditional free-to-air broadcasters.
When it comes to analyzing media entrepreneurship at the corporate level, it is consequential to be concerned with government policies and the entrepreneurs who operate media corporations (Khajeheian, 2017), particularly media policy servers to a sustaining and benign media environment for further media innovations. A limited number of researchers have performed policy reviews on certain media entrepreneurship policy in different geographic contexts as media entrepreneurship is still an undeveloped research field. Media entrepreneurship policy has been studied in an operationalized way by several researchers, such as Fariborz (2018), Feldmann (2005), Khajeheian (2014), Leona (2017) and so forth. The central topic in the studies of media entrepreneurship from the perspective of policies is to explore policy strategies to facilitate new entry and more independent media voices (Hoag, 2008). Yet, little research has been done to particularly explore the regulatory measures and mechanism of the network audio-visual industry.