Overview

"Subscription-video-on-demand (SVOD) services are available on many online video streaming platforms (VSPs) in China, such as iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video, backed by Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent groups (BAT), respectively. The video content on these platforms can be the same shows as those broadcasted on national or provincial television stations, or originally produced and exclusively streamed on the VSP. Meanwhile, VSPs purchase the distribution rights of foreign films and television series to enrich the content pool. By way of example, the first season of the U.S. sitcom Friends (1994) is now available on Tencent Video.The content on VSPs can be viewed on a computer screen, iPad, or cell phone or be streamed via a TV box on the back of the television screen, facilitated by 4G or 5G networks. Many audiences may not sit in front of the TV screen with family members and may prefer watching content alone on a screen of their own and interacting with other viewers through bullet screen comments. As Michael Curtin has suggested, television is ""no longer a broadcast medium or a network medium, or even a multichannel medium; television had become a matrix medium, an increasingly flexible and dynamic mode of communication"", characterized by ""interactive exchanges, multiple sites of productivity and diverse modes of interpretation and use"" (Curtin 2009, 13). This book aims to provide an account of Chinese television, particularly online drama series, or webisodes, with an awareness of the existence and competition of Netflix. Currently, Chinese VSPs of webisodes cannot defeat Netflix in terms of production value, nor can they be like Netflix, as is the case for its Belgian alternative (Raats & Evans 2021). We can analyze the strategies that these VSPs deployed for survival and development. As of December 2012, the number of internet users in China reached one billion, among which 99.7 percent go online through mobile phones, and 33 percent through televisions (CNNIC 2022, 11-17). However, as Zhao Jing (2017) has argued, the media convergence of broadcasting, telecommunications and the Internet is far more complicated than technology convergence. It involves negotiations of power relations, commercial interests and national cultural security concerns. What is available to the one billion internet users watching webisodes today is achieved through ""bumpy roads towards convergence"". Traditional models of TV drama distribution are being transgressed. China Central Television (CCTV) and provincial stations no longer dominate the market.TV drama release schedules have changed from ""TV station first, internet later"" strategies to synchronous schedules, or even ""internet first, TV station later"" strategies (Fan & Chen 2021, 8). Audiences aged from 18 to 30 represent 67.2% of the audience of TV dramas online (ibid, 5). The relationship between state administration and VSP marketization is by no means straightforward or easy to grasp. It is a consensus among Chinese television scholars that there is a paradox between implementing a neoliberal strategy of marketization and maintaining control over ideology and national cultural security (Zhao 1998; Fung 2009; Wang & Lobato 2009). TV drama production and consumption are at the center of this paradoxical relationship. This book covers topics on business strategies of VSPs, original content production trends, trans-media stories telling cases, practitioner insights and audiences behaviour."

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9781839987052

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“The development of video-streaming platforms in the West has been much discussed, but this remarkable book examines their impact, as well as the challenges they pose in China. What this book achieves is the examination of a series of detailed case studies charting indigenous companies and how they have navigated advanced streaming technologies in China. The book’s comprehensive discussion of Chinese streaming television is of great value to both Western and non-Western scholars in the field, as well as anyone interested in how television and streaming have been developed beyond companies such as Netflix” — Dr. Max Sexton, Research Fellow, University of the West of England. “Video-streaming platforms, mist theater, bullet screen, AI scriptwriting … . This edited volume covers some of the latest and most popular topics of Chinese television studies. It is highly informative and thought provoking. I recommend it to anyone interested in Chinese television in the digital age” — Professor Xihe Chen (Ph.D., Ohio State University), Director of the Editing Committee of Film Theory Research, Executive Director of Chinese Film Criticism Academic Society.

The development of video-streaming platforms in the West has been much discussed, but this remarkable book examines their impact, as well as the challenges they pose in China. What this book achieves is the examination of a series of detailed case studies charting indigenous companies and how they have navigated advanced streaming technologies in China. The book's comprehensive discussion of Chinese streaming television is of great value to both Western and non-Western scholars in the field, as well as anyone interested in how television and streaming have been developed beyond companies such as Netflix - Dr. Max Sexton, Research Fellow, University of the West of England. Video-streaming platforms, mist theater, bullet screen, AI scriptwriting ... . This edited volume covers some of the latest and most popular topics of Chinese television studies. It is highly informative and thought provoking. I recommend it to anyone interested in Chinese television in the digital age - Professor Xihe Chen (Ph.D., Ohio State University), Director of the Editing Committee of Film Theory Research, Executive Director of Chinese Film Criticism Academic Society.

Author Information

Xiaying Xu received his Ph.D. in communication from the University of Macau in 2016. Hui Liu is Professor of School of Media and Communication at Shenzhen University, visiting scholar in the Producer Program of School of Theatre Film and Television in University of California, Los Angeles (2015)

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