China seeks to put microdramas under tighter control

Rrags-to-riches tales, revenge plots and twists and turns aplenty – Chinese viewers are loving what they can find in Internet “microdramas,” the latest big thing in Chinese entertainment of vertically filmed shows posted on social media with episodes that have running times of just a few minutes or less.

But Chinese authorities, wary of losing control over messaging, aren’t so keen on the new medium – and are cracking down on the growing microdrama industry.

Unlike traditional television productions, with longer production schedules and larger budgets—and strict government oversight—the microdrama industry has grown through the proliferation of low-budget, quickly-produced mini-shows, which often cost only a fraction of the time. and money to be displayed. in front of viewers and, until recently, were unregulated.

Not known for scripts or performances worthy of awards or acclaim, but rather for their sheer value, microdramas tend to lean toward tried-and-true familiar themes like love affairs, family disputes, and tensions between rich and poor.

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“They’re not looking for the quality of their drama,” Oscar Zhou, a professor at the University of Kent who is researching the issue, told TIME about microdrama producers. “It’s a very profit-oriented production model.”

However, despite the low production value, the audience these microdramas receive is huge and the financial returns are practically immediate. Airing on platforms such as Douyin, Bilibili, Kuaishou and QQ, many microdramas require small-dollar subscriptions to watch, and viewers have proven willing to shell out for them. Last year, Kuaishou had about 270 million daily active users watching microdramas – more than 94 million of them paid users. It is a 2023 program launched on WeChat earned around 100 million yuan (about US$19 million) in just eight days.

In just five years, the size of the microdrama industry’s domestic market has reached 70% of the scale of China’s century-old film industry, at about 38 billion yuan (about $5 billion) in 2023, according to the Chinese financial newspaper. Securities Timesand designed to grow until US$14 billion by 2027.

These microdramas are also reaching American viewers. ReelShort, a Chinese app that streams them and which launched in the US in 2022, was released in 2023 the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store, surpassing TikTok. In the Google app store, there are more than 10 million downloads.

But the very intriguing tropes that keep viewers glued to their screens, especially content that highlights negative aspects of family life, are also what keep the censors up at night.

Over the course of just over a year, the industry has gone from one of the freest forms of expression in China to one of the most heavily regulated.

Between the end of 2022 and February 2023, the Radio and Television Administration of China removed around 25,300 programs from the air for their alleged “pornographic” and “vulgar” content, the state broadcaster reported. CCTV News reported. Is at December 2023The Communist Party’s Office for Cyberspace Affairs issued guidelines on short video content, prohibiting the display of pornographic or violent behavior, incitement to ethnic and regional discrimination, and the propagation of “wrong views on marriage and love.” From June 1stthe government will require all microdramas to have a license before they can be distributed online.

Many of the platforms have also started self-policing to ensure continuity of operations. In recent months, Douyin It is Kuaishou removed several microdrama titles for “bad values” and other illegal content. Earlier this month, Douyin announced that it removed six microdramas because they “deliberately amplified and exaggerated content such as conflicts between husband and wife, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.” On the same day, Kuaishou removed four titles and more than 700 related content, echoing some of Douyin’s reasons, adding that the titles were considered “deviant from society’s dominant value orientation.”

The Xi Jinping administration has repeatedly promoted the preservation of family values ​​as a way to boost ailing birth rates. Young citizens cited a number of factors that explain why they do not want to marry or have children, including predominantly economic concerns, but in a October 2023 Speech Before the All-China Women’s Federation, Xi said: “It is necessary to tell good stories of family tradition, guide women to play their unique role in promoting the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation, establish good family traditions and create a new trend ”. of family civilization.”

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To that end, the government appears to recognize the appeal of microdramas as a potential tool to be harnessed and not just a problem to be curbed. In January, state regulators released a plan to integrate cultural and tourism promotions into up to 100 microdramas this year, as cities that were featured in microdramas saw an increase in visitor numbers. “The government isn’t just going to shut down the entire genre, because it could be an opportunity for them to do something more creative,” says Zhou. “Ideological work,” he calls it.

Zhou doesn’t believe the new restrictions will alienate microdrama producers, who are clearly more interested in profit than principle, he says. “This is always a negotiable space,” he says of the Chinese entertainment industry. “If they want to censor the ‘unconventional family values’ drama, then the production company can find the next step.”

But viewers are already expressing discontent with the latest clear example of the CCP’s efforts to turn culture into control.

In response to the removal of several titles in April, a Weibo user commented: “Film and television dramas are part of culture. If you compare culture to a tree and impose too many restrictions on it, it will only turn into a tree with a crooked neck, let alone ‘cultural trust’.”(Cultural trust is a CCP slogan that calls on Chinese people to be proud of their culture.)

“The country wants to control your thoughts,” another user commented, while another asked, “Are you afraid this will affect the marriage rate because it’s so realistic?”

“Like consumers around the world, the majority of the general public and social media consumers will prefer the lowest common denominator, that is, content produced in their native language, which reflects the country and reality in which they live. live, and easily accessible on your favorite app or streaming. platform,” Michael Berry, director of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, tells TIME.

But, he adds, complaints about censorship in China are also typically not allowed. And he believes – cynically, he admits – that, over time, the Chinese public will simply “readjust their expectations according to what is allowed.”

—Koh Ewe contributed reporting.