From Are You Ok to Let's Talk, various variety shows produced by Chinese streaming companies such as Tencent Video, Sohu TV and iQiyi have received billions of views on their platforms, while also generating buzz and hot discussion on social media platforms like Sina Weibo and WeChat.
At last week's iQiyi 2016 China Online Variety Development Summit Forum, Chen Wei, vice president of iQiyi, predicted that 2016 will be "a crucial year" for bringing the development of streaming variety shows to a higher level.
Online media has certainly become a powerful force, especially for advertisers, as online variety shows tend to target younger audiences. Variety show producer Ma Dong pointed out at the forum that "70 percent of our audience are below 30, while 58 percent of them are female."
According to entertaiment industry analysts, demand has continued to increase, especially among younger audiences, as more online content is produced.
Taking action
Faced with such a lucrative market, China's Internet giants are taking action.
At a Tencent conference last week, Ma Yankun, general manager of Tencent Video, announced plans to work with producers and establish a 1 billion yuan ($153 million) foundation to support online variety shows.
"Tencent Video will invest 1 billion yuan each year to incubate and support excellent producers and teams to develop new content," he said.
While discussing the success of the company's self-produced content from 2015 at last week's conference, iQiyi founder and CEO Gong Yu specifically addressed the potential of online variety shows.
"I'm very happy to have such a fast-growing market," he said.
Jiang Bin, general manager of iQiyi's Program Development Department, also emphasized iQiyi's plans for online variety shows.
"Our R&D team, operation team and promotion team will help our partners integrate network data, enhance the development of Internet thinking, facilitate sales and plan marketing," he said.
Ren Jing, assistant general manager of Shanghai Entertainment Team Media Group, revealed at the iQiyi conference that an independent production team under Dragon TV also plans to enter the online variety show arena and is currently talking with iQiyi to develop one or two online variety programs.
Ma Li, a producer with Super Mali Studio, pointed out the high potential for success when it comes to variety shows.
"The production of online variety shows offers a fair opportunity for directors. No matter what level they are, they can achieve excellent results so long as they think about local culture and keep in mind the Internet environment," he said.
