TV

Surprise, surprise: Chinese legends are most popular TV dramas

legend_drama.jpg

CSM is a market research firm owned by global market research house TNS and a company controlled by CCTV. CSM has released a report about China's TV drama industry in 2004 which Xinhua has summarized. These are some of the key points in the Xinhua summary:

- In 2004, 156 TV stations in 33 cities nationwide broadcast more than 180,000 episodes of 1,500 different TV drama series.

- The above total represents a 5.8% increase from 2003.

- Most of the dramas are Chinese legends plays and "life" dramas.

- Because of recent limits on cops and robbers / crime dramas put in place by SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and TV), the number of such dramas went down to under a quarter of the previous quantity. 

- Historical dramas (literally 'old clothing dramas' 古装剧) also decreased slightly.

- Dramas based on Chinese legends (传奇剧) were the darling of Chinese TV in 2004 making up 20.5% of all dramas watched. 

- Urban life dramas (都市生活剧) also did well. 'Big Sister' (大姐) and 'The Camphor Tree' (香樟树) were the most popular dramas on satellite TV in 2004. 

- 70 foreign dramas (1,297 episodes) were approved for broadcast. 45 of those were from Hong Kong and Taiwan; programs from Korea were the second most broadcast foreign dramas.

- The TV drama market in China is worth 4.3 billion yuan.

LINKS:
- Xinhua: China TV drama report
- CSM home page
The image is a screenshot from the TV drama Longfei Xianggong (龙飞相公)
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