Passafonti talks us through what to expect when working in China and the key things to consider when venturing out of the wild West and into the emerging East.ĪWN: How does the Chinese media landscape look compared to the West? Most recently, she led the development and was story editor for the 52 x 11, preschool show Emmy & GooRoo, as well as writing episodes and the theme tune lyrics for the new Youku series.
Leanne Passafonti: In China, there are large national broadcasters like CCTV and SMG, as well as many regional Chinese broadcasters who operate only in specific parts of China.
While YouTube is not accessible in China without use of a VPN, Youku and other online platforms like Tencent and iQiyi offer a similar experience, though are predominantly populated with professionally produced original content, unlike YouTube. Youku has more than 500 million monthly active users, with 800 million daily video views, second only to iQiyi. There are strict regulations surrounding content in China but currently, the regulations are looser for the online platforms.
Any content airing on TV can air online but not vice versa. However, there is discussion of this potentially changing in early 2018.ĪWN: How did you first get involved in the Chinese TV animation market? Since online platforms are an on-demand service, international content, which traditionally is reduced to non-prime time slots on regular TV, has been finding its way into the Chinese market via the VOD giants.