Culture> Film and TV

Online TV shows boom despite tighter control

( Xinhua ) Updated: 2014-05-16 10:20:47

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The nation's TV watchdog, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, ordered "Diors Man" to be removed from Sohu.com on April 29. Also, four US TV shows were pulled from China's online streaming websites. The reasons have not been published yet.

The administration reiterated in March an existing rule that online programs be censored before being made available for viewing.

It announced last month that Sina.com will be stripped off its online publication license after articles and video content fell foul of the nation's high-profile anti-porn movement.

The "Cleaning the Web 2014" campaign has seen 110 websites shut down and some 3,300 accounts on social networking services as well as online forums deleted.

The office has vowed to maintain its crackdown on online pornography and hand down whatever punishments violators deserve, whether it be fines, licenses stripped or criminal prosecutions.

Also, copyright infringements are another concern for video streaming services. Earlier this month, QVOD Technology shut its QVOD (quasi video on demand) servers after the National Copyright Administration said the company, along with Baidu's video service, violated copyrights.

It used to offer pirated and pornographic videos with peer-to-peer video streaming technology. Its user base quickly grew to 300 million.

Despite all this, there is faith in the industry. Jin Dao, a scriptwriter, believes the trend is inevitable. "The Internet is very likely to be the platform for China's culture industry in the near future."

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