Online series spark frenzy

They are low-budget productions, have no stars and are typically adapted from online novels. Yet they are massively popular with the youth. Deng Zhangyu reports.

Go Princess Go, a small-budget online series without a star cast, has become a hit among young Chinese since it was broadcast on a streaming website in December, with daily "views" crossing more than 10 million.

The ongoing original series made by LeTV, one of China's biggest online video companies or China's version of Netflix, had been watched some 1.5 billion times as of Tuesday, ushering a new era for original programming by online video companies.