Having completed her Master’s degree at BU’s Media School in 2013, Xinyue Wang has gone on to launch China’s biggest new media platform.
Xinyue is the director of Sichuan Radio & TV Station’s new media department and founder of Sichuanguancha, a cross-platform news channel with more than 45 million followers on Douyin, TikTok’s parent company in China.
Having studied her first Master’s degree at Communication University in China in 2012, Xinyue enrolled to study an MA in Producing Film and Television at BU at a time when the use of video to consume news and information was on the rise. She said: “I could see how 4G and mobile internet could impact the journalism industry. Studying at BU gave me a rich practical experience in TV and filmmaking and the international environment gave me a more comprehensive way to observe the people and world."
After working in Beijing for two years, Xinyue went back to her hometown of Chengdu and was hired by Sichuan Radio & TV Station to start its new media department. On 1 January 2017, the station launched Sichuanguancha as a new media news platform - just three months before short video platform Douyin became the most popular in China. Currently, Sichuanguancha has 45 million followers on Douyin and 3 million followers on Weibo.
Xinyue said: “As the news platform with the largest numbers of followers in China, Sichuanguancha now has hundreds of employees. To manage a department at this scale is not an easy job but the media production management course at BU equipped me with practical skills which have been incredibly valuable.”