The online era has arrived and is here to stay; online television has been around in China for the past 5 years now.
About 450 million online video viewers exist in China, which accounts for 80 percent of the total internet connected population. The figure is expected to plummet to 700 million by 2016.
Viewers today exercise great mobility when it comes to watching TV shows on their device at any time as long as there is an internet connection. Television viewing has moved out of the drawing room; viewers can access their favourite TV Shows anytime and anywhere as per their convenience.
The show ‘Absolutely Unexpected’ a Youku.com product has been viewed around 500 million times since its premier in 2013. Diors Man, another one of the online shows produced by Sohu.com, witnessed 1 million views in a short span of time.
Shang Na, chief of the video section of Sohu.com says, “The era of online TV has arrived. The next step for video services is distributing original content”.
Some video websites like Youku, Sina and Sohu has showcased dramas and comedies from the United States, Europe and South Korea. But the industry’s future hangs in balance as it is at logger heads with the strict regulator laws in China.
Photo Credits: Techtalk Africa
