Everyday drama

In living rooms throughout China, as families drink tea or nibble on watermelon seeds after dinner, the conversation will often turn to what soap operas they are going to watch that night.

"My mother washes all the dishes quickly right after dinner and sits on the sofa waiting for her must-see soap opera," says Xu Bingyu, 28, a white-collar worker in Beijing. "She will ask my father and I to watch with her."

The Xu family are among the hundreds of millions of Chinese who spend an average of three hours a day watching drama programs.