Anxious netizens await crackdown on TV shows

Xiao Jing, a 27-year-old translator, has been feeling closely connected to the characters of Lost, the American TV series she has been following.

What bothers her so much is a regulation issued on March 31 by the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT), China's top industry regulator.

It ordered that all domestic and foreign films, TV series, animation pictures and documentaries transmitted online must be licensed by the media regulator. For many young Chinese Internet users, this means they may lose their free lunch of foreign TV series.

"At first I felt shocked, then worried but since I found no big change had happened yet, I feel confused," says Xiao.

American TV series like Prison Break, Lost and Desperate Housewives, are widely popular among young Chinese, who have been used to watching the latest episodes on local video-sharing websites like Youku.com and Tudou.com.

Prison Break lead actor Wentworth Miller is so popular in China that he was hired as the face of a Chinese casual outfit label and when he came here to promote the clothes last year he was treated like a superstar.

Most American TV shows were first recorded onto computers by overseas Chinese, who then made them available online through peer-to-peer software like Bit Torrent or video-sharing websites. Some went further by translating the script and including subtitles.

Most Chinese video websites have a laissez-faire attitude toward the videos uploaded by netizens. This is partly due to the high cost of legally buying the copyright themselves and partly due to the lengthy process necessary to get screening licenses.

The new regulation does not say how websites will be punished if they do not stop sharing the shows, however.

Most websites seem to be testing the new environment. As of yesterday, viewers were still able to find their beloved clips on the Net. The latest episodes of Lost and Ugly Betty, for example, were still available on Youku and Tudou. So were some Japanese and Korean shows, which are also popular among young Chinese.

Some netizens thought the new regulation was an "April Fools' joke" when they first heard about it but soon lost their grins when it turned out to be genuine.

"The biggest advantage of the Internet is speed. If the new regulation comes into force, the lengthy procedures to get a license mean we will not be able to watch the latest shows any more," a netizen wrote.

Some are more relaxed about it, though.

"I don't care that much about the regulation," says Shi Hao, a college student. "Even if we cannot watch the shows online, we can still download them through peer-to-peer software or buy DVDs."

The industry is still suffering at the hands of illegal downloading and pirated DVDs, despite the government's continuous efforts to crack down on piracy.

China allows only 20 foreign films to be shown in movie theaters every year and rarely broadcasts the latest foreign TV series.



National TV network CCTV broadcast the first season of Desperate Housewives in 2005 but fans criticized the translation, dubbing, and cutting of nude and violent scenes.

China had about 300 million Internet users at the end of this January.