CHINA: Chinese sitcom makers use internet to make unique programme

China's internet youths produce a comedy series dubbed the Chinese version of the hit U.S. sitcom "Friends". But the storyline is dictated by internet users. "Soul Partners", a new comedy series described as China's version of the U.S. TV hit "Friends", features six people in their 20s who live together after being separately tricked into buying the same apartment. But rather than developing according to the plans of top screenwriters, episodes follow the whims of China's growing community of Internet users. How the plot of "Soul Partners" -- shown on video-sharing Web site Mofile (www.mofile.com) and not on traditional television -- evolves from week to week depends on viewers' feedback. That makes the series an unusually frank reflection of popular opinion in a country where the authorities still tightly control media content. "We are always communicating with our internet audience and adjusting our episodes accordingly. We have always been adjusting our look, our structure and our content according to their feedback, but also by keeping in line with the principles of making television," said director Zheng Kai (pron: cheng-kai). The show -- now into the fourth of a planned 20 episodes -- has already garnered a total of over 1.5 million viewers, and is starting to win fans elsewhere in the Chinese-speaking world, particularly Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. "We hope to make our series popular and make it big and attract more viewers by trying out a new way to make television," Zheng added. The fresh-faced amateur actors -- with an average age of 22 -- who hang around and go over their scripts in a borrowed apartment on the outskirts of Shanghai, China's commercial hub, were chosen from 1,000 applicants online. Most of the actors and actresses in the series have no previous acting experience but said they were attracted to the novel format of the web series. "The reason why I had wanted to join this series is because I felt I wanted to experience the natural process of expressing yourself as an actress. I was very interested in experiencing this, so I came and gave it a try," said actress You Zhixing (pron: you-chee-shing). "As to acting in Soul Partners, I feel the main thing is that we are happy acting as a group. And also, we are free to express our characters on the internet, and display our true selves while bringing fun to the audiences," said actor Yuan Xiaoyi (pron: yuan-hsiao-yee). Web broadcasting gives "Soul Partners" a national audience and skirts China's TV regulations. Foreign companies providing content through traditional TV channels, including Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and Viacom Inc. have unsuccessfully lobbied for years to gain a nationwide footprint. China is the world's second-largest Internet market by user numbers after the United States, and is seeing a blossoming of homegrown social networking Web sites such as Mofile, which allow users to generate their own content by posting video clips. This is partly because user-generated content is far more responsive to online demand than China's relatively staid and heavily regulated mass media. Pirated satellite dishes, used to watch foreign TV shows are widespread in a country where local television dramas routinely rehash Mao Zedong's trouncing of Nationalist armies in 1949, or dramas set in imperial courts a thousand or more years ago. Foreign investment has been flowing into Chinese Internet start-ups, while Google's $1.65 billion acquisition last year of video-sharing Web site YouTube helped spawn a host of Chinese YouTube clones which hope to attract venture capital. Mofile is one of a bevy of homegrown video-sharing Web sites, including Tudou, 56.com and Yoqoo, which jostle for the attention of China's 137 million Internet users. Meanwhile established Web companies Tom Online Inc., SINA Corp., Sohu.com Inc. and Netease.com Inc., are believed to be considering expansion into video sharing. Baidu.com, dubbed "China's Google", hopes to expand its online video services.

ITN Source | March 2, 2007

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