More Than Half of the World’s New TV Dramas Hail From China

[beijingwalker]

More Than Half of the World’s New TV Dramas Hail From China
By REBECCA DAVIS
OCTOBER 22, 2019 5:59AM PT

More than half of the world’s new TV dramas now hail from China, market research firm Ampere Analysis said Tuesday in a new report on global content production over the past six months.

In the last half year, top Chinese broadcasters and OTT platforms have commissioned almost 300 new drama series – as many as those from all other countries combined, Ampere’s report said. Content in China skews heavily towards drama at the expense of other genres, with 67% of upcoming mainland shows falling into that category, compared to just 16% of upcoming U.S. ones.

Romance titles made up 14% of total Chinese series in production, compared to just 6% in the U.S. – not terribly surprising in Asia, where the genre tends to be more popular than in the West. Crime and thriller genre works were notably under-represented in China compared to other regions, making up just 10% of scripted commissions. The Middle Kingdom also produced very few comedy and sci-fi or fantasy commissions for television during the period in question.

“China’s commissioning habits have had a huge impact on the global TV slate. A preference for drama pushes the genre from second-most commissioned worldwide to No. 1,” Richard Cooper, Ampere Analysis’ research director, said.

By the numbers, China’s SVOD services are quickly catching up to the big U.S. names. Ampere expects leading Chinese platforms iQiyi, Tencent and Youku to reach 116 million, 108 million and 61 million subscribers, respectively, by the end of the year. That would put China’s top two industry leaders behind Netflix’s projected subscriber count of 164 million but ahead of Amazon’s 91 million.

There remains a big difference, however, between who in China is actually ordering new content versus the situation in the U.S. While nearly half the American shows in the past six months were commissioned by OTT platforms, only 8% of new Chinese ones were.

The vast majority of Chinese content is commissioned by numerous small local broadcasters. Nevertheless, SVOD platforms iQiyi, Tencent, and Youku were China’s most active individual commissioners of content, followed by the big traditional broadcasters Hunan TV, Dragon TV and Zhejiang TV.

Producers looking to target the vast China market should remain aware that “the underlying preference for drama is driven primarily by the regional broadcast networks,” Cooper said.

“The Chinese SVOD services, which have some of the largest subscriber bases in the world and now represent nearly one in 10 new series green-lit in China, echo the global and U.S. TV giants in terms of the genres they are commissioning,” he said.

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/netflix-iqiyi-youku-tencent-amazon-china-dramas-1203378604/

 

[KAL-EL]

Crisis on infinite earths is coming

 

[beijingwalker]

Everyday some new TV dramas are coming out, don't know how many people are watching them and how they can recover the cost let alone making a profit.

 

[zectech]

I used to watch a Chinese sitcom of a family who lived in a family owned restaurant. This was based 100 years ago. I did not speak Chinese, so I did not know what they were saying, but enjoyed the sitcom thoroughly. That was the last sitcom I saw. The Ahhhmurican sitcoms are psy-ops, meaning they are trying to brainwash you into a drooling mess, so you can be controlled easily, and they can bomb some third world country with no complaints. First they must make you a drooling mess via Ahhmurican entertainment.

The Chinese sitcom have no brainwashing, you simply appreciate Chinese culture, which is a good thing and useful to free and democratic people.

This is literally the point of Western entertainment:

(You have been warned)

Chinese entertainment is cultural, uplifting and beneficial and fortifies your brain from brainwashing.

 

[Tom99]

In this case, it is definitely better to have quality over quantity.

 

[tower9]

China needs to stop remaking all these period dramas based on ancient history. That won't appeal overseas. China needs to learn from S. Korea in regards to how to effectively create a modern pop culture that has global appeal. China is absolute shit when it comes to soft power.

 

[Baby Leone]

even Pakistan made 100s of hit dramas every year, i dont now why Pakistani dramas and films are not dubbed in Chinese. Pakistani producers are stupid as hell and not taking benefit of good relations with China. Just like India China is even bigger and richer market. see the popularity of Pakistani dramas in India despite indian govt and RSS ban on Pakistani content.

 

[beijingwalker]

China needs to stop remaking all these period dramas based on ancient history. That won't appeal overseas. China needs to learn from S. Korea in regards to how to effectively create a modern pop culture that has global appeal. China is absolute shit when it comes to soft power.

China herself is the world biggest market for TV dramas, and the Chinese people can't get enough of history dramas, the producers need to make money, the priority is to cater to the Chinese market. In China we don't really buy that " soft power" sht, when you achieve hard power, soft power will always come with it and we know what our priorities lie.

 

[kankan326]

China needs to stop remaking all these period dramas based on ancient history. That won't appeal overseas. China needs to learn from S. Korea in regards to how to effectively create a modern pop culture that has global appeal. China is absolute shit when it comes to soft power.

China has cersorship for movies/dramas. That's the main reason for making ancient dramas. They are not so sensitive. Anyway I still believe Chinese drama will be increasingly popular in the world. Because China has very beautiful actresses/actors. Good looking faces is a sucess guarantee in entertainment industry.

 

[Mista]

In China we don't really buy that " soft power" sht, when you achieve hard power, soft power will always come with it

Lol this is the very typical view of many mainland Chinese. You know, the 弱肉强食 mentality. "One day when we surpass the US, others will fall in line and we will become the bla bla bla, when I have hard power, it doesn't matter what other thinks etc"

Does China not have enough hard power already? Is South Korea a powerful country in the 1990s when K-wave started sweeping across Asia?

Even Xi's family and Wang Qishan watches K-dramas. Do they watch K-dramas because SK has 'hard power'?

 

[Ali_Baba]

I have seen some of these on Netflix and i do like them. The production values are excellent, and i am a fan of historical dramas anyway, so it is up my street.

 

[Mista]

I have seen some of these on Netflix and i do like them. The production values are excellent, and i am a fan of historical dramas anyway, so it is up my street.

Historical dramas itself aren't a problem, there are plenty of Korean historical dramas which are popular anyway. I love watching Chinese historical dramas when I was a kid too, and I still remember fondly of them.

The issue here is that many Chinese producers love to imitate each other's success and jump on the bandwagon. So when one drama is popular, there will be similar adaptations or remakes of that drama and it becomes cliche at times. A good joke shouldn't be repeated consecutively otherwise it becomes a cliche.

So now Chinese historical dramas are flooded with:
1) Palace dramas where 20 consorts backstab each other to win the Emperor's favor.
2) Endless adaptations of Jin Yong novels almost every year.

 

[beijingwalker]

Lol this is the very typical view of many mainland Chinese. You know, the 弱肉强食 mentality. "One day when we surpass the US, others will fall in line and we will become the bla bla bla, when I have hard power, it doesn't matter what other thinks etc"

Does China not have enough hard power already? Is South Korea a powerful country in the 1990s when K-wave started sweeping across Asia?

Even Xi's family and Wang Qishan watches K-dramas. Do they watch K-dramas because SK has 'hard power'?

Korean soap operas now are much much less popular they they were a decade ago, Chinese dramas now dominate China and becomes popular in south east Asian countries, that's the general trend.

Soft power does come from hard power, English language could've never become the dominant global language without old British hard power, for most part, soft power is a byproduct of hard power.

 

[tower9]

Lol this is the very typical view of many mainland Chinese. You know, the 弱肉强食 mentality. "One day when we surpass the US, others will fall in line and we will become the bla bla bla, when I have hard power, it doesn't matter what other thinks etc"

Does China not have enough hard power already? Is South Korea a powerful country in the 1990s when K-wave started sweeping across Asia?

Even Xi's family and Wang Qishan watches K-dramas. Do they watch K-dramas because SK has 'hard power'?

That mentality explains exactly why the PRC has so much hard power, yet so little soft power and is widely and personally disliked by most of the world's people.

I know the Chinese members here will just post some bullshit article about how global opinion of the US is lower. I agree it's low because the US government acts like an asshole, but most of the world actually has positive opinions and interactions with American culture, people, ideas. While with China, their personal experiences have largely been negative or at most, indifferent.

 

[Dinky]

@kankan326 @beijingwalker can you guys recommend me some good Chinese Drama, I recently watched 'A love so beautiful' and it was really good, high quality Chinese drama.