Being able to adapt to new technologies and seize opportunities when they arise are the keys to a successful media organisation, delegates at the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP) Social Communications meeting in Taiwan heard last month.
“Media comes from grabbing opportunities,” said Director of Kuangchi Program Service (KPS) Fr Jerry Martinson SJ, in his presentation to delegates on the first day of the meeting, which was hosted by KPS, the Jesuit production centre in Taiwan.
KPS has been producing religious, educational and cultural radio and television programs for audiences in Greater China for 56 years.
Named after Paul Xu Guangqi, who was a colleague of Matteo Ricci, the organisation’s mission is to serve the spiritual, educational and social needs of the Chinese people through media production and training.
Fr Martinson said the Jesuits first began producing radio programs in Taiwan in 1958, but soon saw the opportunities presented by television production. They built two studios – the original studios in Taiwan – and produced what is likely the first television Chinese drama in those studios.
KPS now occupies a ten-storey building in downtown Taipei, which includes six television studios and digital production facilities. It has become the largest Catholic producer and distributor of Chinese language television programs in China, producing programs that are viewed through the government’s TV broadcaster. One broadcast can reach hundreds of millions of viewers.
Fr Martinson said KPS developed by responding to the needs of the people – first for radio programs, then television programs focusing in particular on non-formal education and family entertainment.
Their focus is, and has always been, on values-based programming – education and public service programs, religious programs and programs for minorities and the marginalised.
A significant upcoming production for KPS will be a documentary on Giuseppe Castiglione, a Jesuit artist who was one of the early missionaries in China and had a lasting impact on the culture of the country.
Reaching the masses
Other communications ministries also shared some of their successful initiatives at the meeting, with two countries currently raising funds for feature film productions.
The Indonesian Jesuit film studio SAV Puskat is currently working on its second feature film, which will focus on a school run by religious sisters during the years of the country’s struggle for independence.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Jesuit Communications office is planning a feature film on the life of St Ignatius Loyola. A production crew has been hired for the production, which will be filmed on location in Spain, taking in some of the significant sites in the Society’s history.
Representatives from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia-Singapore, Korea, Japan and Australia also spoke of the communications activities in their countries during the three-day meeting.
In their future planning, the group discussed the progress of a conference-wide migration video which is being developed by a number of different provinces, as well as how the different communication organisations might work together to help tell the stories of some of the larger events happening around the region – the 400th anniversary of the Jesuits in Vietnam, the Pope’s visit to Asia, and the 60th anniversary of the Thailand and Malaysia-Singapore regions. [Province Express]
For more on KPS: https://jcapsj.org/content/faith-media-helps-jesuit-tv-studio-crack-china