【Globle Times 2010年07月06日】
Screenshots of Joseph Cheng (left) and Li Fei'er from Welcome, Love. Photos: Courtesy of Lu Yang
By Huang Xi
Online television series are nothing new, but some exciting recent innovations by the industry's top guns are paving the way for a higher-quality, higher-profile and even interactive content for web-weary netizens.
Foreign websites like Youtube.com and other video streaming sites have been making their own original online sitcoms and drama and China's giants are rushing to offer their share.
In the recently completed 16th Shanghai TV Festival last month, Tudou. com, one of the first video websites in the country, promoted its upcoming original television series Welcome, Love.
With participation from celebrities like Joseph Cheng, Pu Xueliang, Pei Bei and Li Fei'er and with Taiwanese producer Su Limei who produced You Are My Destiny and director Ke Hanchen from The Outsiders as well as several other well-known media personalities, the online show was the center of attention at the festival.
And surprisingly, there is innovation to be found in what seems like an already flooded market
Joy.cn, a leading video website in China, launched more than 20 interactive television series in May, in which viewers can make choices on behalf of the character, a type of Choose Your Own Adventure online show.
Joy announced that it was the first video website on the Chinese mainland to present the "brand-new" type of interactive online series.
"We have a professional team to produce this content according to our users' viewing habits," Wu Qi, the director of the website's Joke Channel told the Global Times.
Seven, the most popular interactive sitcom on the Joke Channel played by the Back Dorm Boys, has earned 400 million clicks since it was launched in May, which is equal to the record-breaking television series Dwelling Narrowness on the same website.
However, with innovation comes controversy. Many viewers are not willing to accept this new system, displaying just how trial-and-error the field has become.
The plot is more complex and the performances are more professional than the user-generated content, but the interactive settings are provoking a lot of complaints.
"It is a real pain to choose where the plot will go every minute," said a regular viewer from Shuozhou, Shanxi Province, echoing the opinions of many others from around the country not warming to this medium.
Screenshots of Joseph Cheng (left) and Li Fei'er from Welcome, Love. Photos: Courtesy of Lu Yang
Quality or quantity
Unlike traditional television series, online series are much shorter, usually around 10 minutes per episode in accordance with netizens' short attention spans. That results in "a low cost," but it also results in what some would call "low quality."
However, its cheap reputation is about to change. Whether it be celebrity cameos or professional production teams, online series are aiming to shake off their bad reputation by creating higher-quality content to satisfy their viewers.
"The product should be more viewer-friendly rather than just showing off new concepts," commented Yu Jia, an online product manager from China Telecom.
By including dozens of experienced directors, actors and actresses as well as media consultants, Welcome, Love is considered a decent creation by media critics.
It tells the story of two young people who fall in love in a convenience store.
"A good script is the major factor for the success of an online drama," said prominent director You Xiaogang, who set up his own online video production company three years ago.
Su Limei, the producer of Welcome, Love, believes that the Internet provides a larger space for content creation, which will help attract more young people.
Obsession with being first
Todou.com brags that the new plan is the first to produce an original online television series, though other domestic online websites have been producing their own television series for years now.
Smgbb.cn, a video website from the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), made its own television series Addiction three years ago.
Youku.com, another domestic video website, has also been producing its own series over the past few years.
Youku.com unveiled its new production plans in April and announced its cooperation with the China Film Group Corporation (CFGC) earlier in June, inviting 11 popular young directors to make short films on the 1980s generation.
"We aim to use professional film studios and leading filmmakers to make content adaptable for online broadcasting," said Wei Ming, senior vice president of operations at Youku.com.
Wei believes that cooperation with experienced filmmaking groups can enhance their own productivity. "This, more importantly, will result in more content for the website," he added.
"We did it long before we marked it with 'Produced by Youku.com,' and they (Tudou and others) follow us very tightly," Wei said.
The success of Hulu.com in the US (which makes money from online advertisements by broadcasting copyrighted television shows and films) seems to indicate a new direction for domestic video websites, which are closely following the UGC (User-generate Content) method of sites like Youtube.
Surviving their first five years of start-up, the Chinese domestic video websites, to some extent, have established their business model and have begun to earn money to support their development.
But the heated competition has pushed the whole industry into its second start-up period, which confronts the booming 3G market and a more discerning audience.
"They all need additional money to survive another five years, so there should be some new ideas to attract investments," said Lily Pan, an experienced online prod-uct manager.