China's locally produced online TV dramas are currently being prepared to be streamed for online consumption by Chinese netizens, and sales is expected to exceed $320 million. With this figure, local drama series are set to represent 25 percent of the total sales of Web content in all of China.
China is considered as the world's second-biggest movie consumer, and although the country has tricky regulations on purchasing films outside China, content providers are now making huge profits selling content to Youku Tudou, Baidu's iQIYI, Sohu.com and Tencent.
New policies are tough for content providers especially those from the U.S.
The new policies being drafted and expected to be put in effect on April 1 include a rule that requires advance screening by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and TV (SAPPRFT ) of all TV shows.
Last year, the number of TV shows streamed online increased by 100, which is twice the number in 2013. Further, 55 of these shows were produced by the website operators streaming them.
Among these shows are "Surprises" from Youku Tudou, which was viewed more than 1.6 billion times during the first two seasons, and "Diors Man" from Sohu.com, which was viewed 2.1 billion times during the first three seasons.
SAPPRFT said last September that all foreign TV shows must be pre-approved by them before they can be allowed to be posted on video sites and producers must first present the whole season for approval.
Domestic shows are not having such a hard time with the censors compared to the foreign shows. This is because local producers are already aware of the ways of the Chinese censorship board.
Vice president of cultural studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Zhang Xiaoming said that there is a shortage of Internet dramas despite the fact that these locally produced shows are being made very quickly compared to their foreign counterparts.