Chinese TV wins global fans
According to Yun, foreign shows are representative of their countries. For example, Sherlock (2014) and Downtown Abbey (2010), give a snapshot of periods of English history and made many people interested in British culture.
"The production process of Chinese series are similar to the foreign ones, since they are all based on a country's tradition and history," said Yun. "The story rules, so we must make better use of our traditional culture and history to produce more great stories."
Liu shares Yun's opinion. "Chinese people are good at several genres such as mythology, palace dramas, and history. They are unique in China, and easy to inspire scriptwriters." He said it would be weird for Chinese producers to touch on certain topics such as science fiction. "We have to admit that our national power and science is not as developed as some Western countries, and we lack the fact base to make series out of that. Mere imagination is not enough, and the audience will not buy it."
Zhang said another reason fans of American and British dramas began to watch domestic TV series is that the glimpse into Western life they offer is becoming less novel.
Domestic TV series are also attracting more foreign viewers. The show Nirvana in Fire has created a buzz on the TV drama forums like viki.com, attracting thousands of followers. Many foreign audiences expressed their love toward the series, commenting that the series is "a tastefully done Chinese period drama."
Internet dramas big success
Zhang Haobo, who directs dramas made exclusively for the Internet, said that Net dramas first appeared about seven years ago in China with low budgets. However, in recent years, Net dramas have won lots of fans with increasing quality and higher budgets, and compared well with TV series.
According to a recent Beijing News report, the increasingly developed Internet broadcasting infrastructure and business model have given Net series an outlet to be seen by the public. There were about 1,700 such Internet series produced in the Chinese mainland in 2014, and it is anticipated that the number in 2015 will be over 3,000.
The report said in 2016 and 2017, the investment in Net dramas will increase, with many big budget productions. Two seasons of Internet series adopted from the famous feng shui tomb raider fictional books, Guichuideng, or The Adventure of Three Tomb Raiders, will be available online. Additionally, Tencent, one of the largest Internet companies in China, will cooperate with Hong Kong's Television Broadcasts Limited in making an Internet series, the sequel of Line Walker (2014), a popular police and gangster TV series.
Zhang believes the future China's series, especially Net series, will be better and better with the development of social media and the Internet. He says that currently many cultural products follow a fast-food model, which suits the modern society's fast pace of development and benefits Net series.
"The key for Net series' success is to be short in length with good and interesting stories," said Zhang. "In the future, the cast will have more famous actors, and big-budget Net dramas are sure to be produced."
With the development of the Internet and the increasing dependence of Chinese audience on the Internet, Net series will enlarge its market proportion, said Zhang.
"Net series will definitely be the key point and future of Chinese drama series."
