Online video in China

The Chinese stream

China’s online-video market is the largest and most innovative in the world. It is also the most competitive

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It is the trend of our life nowdays, with technology developing we can get imformations through different is very convient for us customers to look what we want, but not according to the TV's decideding.


This article was well reported and well researched. In traditional Economist depth, pointing out the fact that the government is censoring TV much more than online video is something that I was unaware of. The manner in which the government continues to try to control the message is utterly fascinating. Keep up the amazing work Economist.


The authority once did criticize the so-called "time travel drama（穿越剧）", for the ridiculous stories and not respecting history. I think this type of dramas are totally different from the stories in western movies. After all, time travel is something about science fiction, instead of the fabricating of history.

PS: I am not saying I endorse the authority, I just dislike the awful stories.

weijia wang

There is an important philosophy that needs to be borne in mind when we talked about China; every happening is contest between the party and folk voice. As the time goes on after reform of China, the balance is being evolved between officials and the rest of society. Everyone can find a proper position for surviving comfortable at different standard. Talent show and time travel show are the typical entertainment which was developed and authorised by official that would like to distract the line of sight of people, for those embarrassing and hopeless occurrence which has been driving a huge insurge in their mind. Being a fragmentary usage of internet, Chinese people just play social media within a big local area network. Things like talent show and time travel show which is new style of TV program have an appealing look to Chinese, so every producer was going to copy and paste coz everyone in the country was talking about that. All advetizer was lining up to give the new shows an apple. And the most important secret is that CCTV as the main-stream media always be late for those business opportunities. The Chinese media administration who is the political governor of all mediums have to take care its firstborn so that the in fashion shows have been being controlled. why controlling not dismissing is because of the balance. Official surely will not kick out all the local TV station, but they tended protect CCTV by using political and stiff manipulation. The more undisguised they are doing recent year to talent show is they force every top 3 talents of each talent show from different provincial satellite TV to join the big event and TV live show of CCTV. It seems fair enough for conducting at least one from each PSTV in whatever popularity, actually it takes huge advantage of PSTV which invested huge amount of money to promote the program, and the money of course come from advertisers and taxpayers. Like TV rating cheating, the measurements of internet field are also suffering a big deception. That why small one cannot survive in such big counterfeit situation because they have no discourse to weave the story for competing against huge one. As the more expensive intellectual property is, only big site can be survived so that lots of mergences have been appearing. In order to lure much more advertisers, everyone would like to keep the deception all along, and the monopoly like Baidu is the best way to play the game.


China's business models are always copied from western countries,which I feel shamed.Now the online TV imitates the success of Card of House,when can China be creative and make other countries learn from him?

Nicolas Schafer in reply to guest-lninsej

There is nothing wrong with copying ideas. If you have any knowledge in urban planning, you would know that some U.S. cities like DC, are complete imitations of european cities. My point is, if something works, there is absolutely nothing wrong with borrowing the idea and improving the idea later on in your own way. Just look like X factor, american idol, sweden's got talent. Are you serious just going to criticize Chinese tv programs but not the european TV programs?


After digging around on the internet for a while there does seem to be something behind the "no depictions of time travel" story, although not very much. There are lots of articles on Chinese sites claiming the story is fake, and to an extent they are right, the story that was carried widely in the western media is exaggerated and misleading. A quick search of Chinese video sites for "time travel drama" (穿越剧) reveals that new dramas of this type are still being broadcast.

However time-travel dramas certainly did receive heavy criticism from the authorities back in 2011 and television channels were discouraged from making them. From some very unscientific searching I'd say there does seem to have been a reduction in dramas of this type, so while largely false, there is at least a little bit of truth to the story (i.e. the government dislikes time travel dramas).

hmmmmmmm in reply to Jan567

The restriction is just for airing on CCTV, satellite channels can still do it. But approval will be guaranteed to be slow and scrutiny will be intrusive. See Ballad of the Desert (大漠谣) to see what they are up against. Which why popular time travel and historical fictions such as 绾青丝 and 兰陵缭乱 will not be produced as TV series despite popular demand.

The restriction is probably temporary, as popularity of historical fiction dies down it will be lifted. It similar to restriction placed on Wuxia series when it was the rage back in the early 2000s. After the restriction on using Shaolin name on the new Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre, nobody is making another jing yong remake. And restrictions apparently lifted, new shows saw little or no censorship in that regard.


"no depictions of time travel“ isn't so outlandish. Recent years many young adult Chinese spent considerable time reading fictions about young men traveled back in time to ancient dynasty, taking advantage of knowing history, gaining power and building a large harem -- all wasteful day-dreamer for under-achieved young guys. The government's intention is to restrict this kind of mental masturbation and kick those dreaming young guys back to real world.

hmmmmmmm in reply to Galaxy_Jump

actually these novels are more popular with girls, with female protectionist and the authors are mostly women too. My girlfriend is really into them for a while. But thankfully, that phase is coming off.

Some of them actually have rather amazing amount of historical research. The best I have read is Beiyang 1917, (北洋1917). (definitely one more popular with guys) Although it does have a element of mental masturbation, but it's quite obvious the author research the early Republic era very well especially with large number of what-ifs in that era.

Also personally, I would prefer popular historical novels being turned into TV series again, with 国破山河在 and 尊严不是无代价的 on the top of my list. But giving the trouble Towards Republic (走向共和) has gotten into. It will not happen anytime soon.

Yanshan Yu

I have never heard of the restriction on "time travel" content. It is untrue.

hmmmmmmm in reply to Yanshan Yu

The restriction is for air on CCTV1 9pm slot. It's fine to broadcast on other station (which many series did.)

However, there is ban using fictional dynasties, and later using historical character to do unhistorical stuff. (the previous restriction affected Empress in the Palace(后宫甄嬛传) which originally set in a Fictional dynasties. The later affected Ballad of the Desert, 大漠谣. Which had to change all of the original historical Character into fictional character. Neither qualified to air on CCTV)


"no depictions of time travel"

An intriguing article on a number of levels, but I keep coming back to the earlier statement about censorship and Time Travel. I can "sort of" imagine far flung reasons for this one but... actually, I can't! How would this story device be equivalent to indecent, or politically volatile content?

It's not a rule against historical storylines.
Not a rule against science fiction or depictions of the future, just against the "mixing up" of timelines as it were. So characters could even have flashbacks if it was depicted as memory as well, just not actually GO BACK in time (or forward).



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