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The Chinese media industry dolled itself up and kissed off the global economic downturn by enticing double-digit growth this year.

Getting a boost from what experts call the "lipstick effect" - women turning from expensive purchases like jewelry to smaller feel-good items during a recession - the output of the industry hit 422 billion yuan ($62 billion) last year, an 11.3 percent increase from the previous year.

"People seek cheaper means of entertainment like playing online games or watching movies as their 'lipstick' to release the pressures from economic life," Cui Baoguo, chief of the media operation and management studies center under Tsinghua University, said yesterday at the launch of the 2009 Blue Book on China's Media Industry.

The figure is expected to reach 531.4 billion in 2010.

China's film industry flourished last year as the box office hit 8.4 billion yuan, 25 percent over the record of 2007, said the Blue Book.

The sales of the online gaming industry in China last year increased 76.6 percent year-on-year to reach 18.3 billion yuan.

Online gaming brought direct business income of 47.8 billion yuan to telecom and IT industries.

However, China's advertising industry was an exception to the expanding media industry of 2008, in the wake of the economic crisis, according to the Blue Book.

"Online advertising decreased 25 percent, followed by a decrease in newspaper advertising of 15 percent," Huang Shengmin, professor of advertising at the Communication University of China, said yesterday.

The advertising industry was also influenced by the earthquake that hit China last year, he said. All commercial advertising gave way to news reporting and charity advertising during the earthquake, said the Blue Book.

（英語點津 Helen 編輯）

Brendan joined The China Daily in 2007 as a language polisher in the Language Tips Department, where he writes a regular column for Chinese English Language learners, reads audio news for listeners and anchors the weekly video news in addition to assisting with on location stories. Elsewhere he writes Op’Ed pieces with a China focus that feature in the Daily’s Website opinion section.

He received his B.A. and Post Grad Dip from Curtin University in 1997 and his Masters in Community Development and Management from Charles Darwin University in 2003. He has taught in Japan, England, Australia and most recently China. His articles have featured in the Bangkok Post, The Taipei Times, The Asia News Network and in-flight magazines.