Tan Fei: American Drama Off the Shelves, Chinese Drama Needs Improvement

Recently, many American drama fans in China were surprised to find out that a few American dramas, including “The Big Bang Theory,” were taken down from many video websites. The video pages stated, “Due to related policy, the video is not available to watch.” So far, there are four American dramas that have been taken off the shelves: “The Big Bang Theory,” “The Good Wife,” “NCIS” and “The Practice.” The blocking of the first two shows had a relatively large impact because they have a large base of hardcore fans in China.

To many people who have paid attention to Chinese television markets, this is not surprising news. Several months ago, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television of China (SARFT) announced the strengthening of the examination of network audition programs for network dramas and microfilms among others. Except for domestic dramas, all American and British dramas purchased by major video websites are facing examination. According to the announcement mentioned above, American and British dramas purchased by video websites shall be “examined before broadcast” in the future. Meanwhile, programs passing examination must report to the local television broadcasting administration at the province level and keep a record. According to Internet Audio-Visual Program Service Regulations, anyone committing a violation will be subject to a television broadcasting administration warning, ordered correction and fine.

Currently, American dramas have the highest production costs and the largest influence in the world. Since their introduction in China, American dramas have gained many followers, especially in urban areas. However, without examination from Chinese film censors, large-scale, bloody and violent scenes of American dramas appear in Chinese video websites without any cutting. Regulatory authorities have mostly ignored this issue in the past. With many video websites’ increased purchase of American dramas in the past two years, parts of scenes in American dramas have had an increasingly prominent impact on teenagers. Therefore, increasing supervision becomes the inevitable choice of regulatory authorities. According to the analysis of foreign media, the introduction of such a policy will impact 80 percent of American dramas, and there will be more American dramas being taken off the shelf.

Except for regulating contents and “cleaning” videos, the authorities introducing such a policy have deeper concerns. A while ago, many people from the domestic film and TV industry had the same complaint: Films and TV programs made in China have to face strict censorship; however, the examining of foreign films or dramas on the Internet is not enforced. This creates an unfair advantage in favor of foreign productions, making it difficult for domestic productions to compete. Films and TV programs made in China lose at the starting line. Because of the absence of a classification system in the Chinese film and TV industry, such varied censorship will have a large impact on the performance of domestic films and TV programs in the market. Many insiders suggest that foreign films and TV programs should be censored following the same standards.

Based on the above facts, regulatory authorities are wielding knives upon American dramas, not only to protect the physical and mental health of teenagers, but also to protect the still weak domestic film and TV industry in China — especially domestic dramas, which increasingly show weakness in the face of competition from American dramas. Apparently, this policy from SARFT is not related to the “one drama can only be broadcast by up to two channels” policy, which was announced not long ago and is going to be implemented in 2015. However, they followed the same strain, and both are ways of adjusting trends of the film and TV industry and assisting domestic films by using policy leverage. The media guessed that the major crisis American dramas suffered offered an opportunity to Korean and Japanese dramas. In the future, video websites are going to purchase more Korean dramas, but the author thinks the excessive spread of foreign films and TV programs will decline once those productions are subjected to regulations and controls from regulatory authorities.