Log on, tune in, drop out

Chinese couch potatoes love American TV drama - they just don't watch it on a couch. Whether out of necessity or out of choice, the Chinese way of receiving video content may well point to how people receive information and entertainment in the future.

When Netflix made all 13 episodes of House of Cards available for streaming online earlier this year, it created somewhat of a revolution in the viewing habits of the American public. Some binged on the Web-only drama series about Washington politics, while others complained about the glut of spoilers revealed by those already ahead in the story. The lament about the end of the collective experience of TV viewing reached a mini-crescendo.

This would not have raised a single eyebrow in China. On this side of the Pacific, television drama has never been consumed in weekly morsels. Even before the advent of online video, television stations were prone to daily broadcasts, sometimes airing as many as three episodes a day. A 60-episode series regularly runs for three weeks or less, accounting for the abundance of such programming throughout the nation.