China Simultaneously Regulates and Promotes the Micro Drama Sector
A new category of micro dramas is added by COL and Bomanbridge
Regulation Follows China Micro Drama Sector Success
Chinese authorities last week announced a two-month campaign to enforce regulation in the booming micro drama industry. They have also helped promote the format in which China is a world leader.
The National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) has instructed broadcasting authorities at provincial level to step up oversight through inspections and random checks. Streaming and specialist platforms and production companies are required to conduct self-inspections.
The NRTA wants to root out, “harmful and vulgar content and piracy in micro-short dramas, focusing on issues such as children-related harmful content, soft pornography, money worship and flaunting wealth, distorted marriage values, feudal remnants, violence and revenge, vulgar titles, and copyright infringement”.
“After the campaign, the NRTA will establish routine monitoring and oversight, and improve regulations to promote a healthier online audiovisual environment”, the authority said in a statement.
Such crackdowns are periodic show regulators responding to a fast-growing industry that moves quickly in new directions.
Between late 2022 and early 2023, the NRTA organised a “special rectification campaign” during which it removed 25,300 micro dramas, totalling close to 1.4 million episodes, due to their “pornographic, bloody, violent, low-brow and vulgar content.”
In February last year, the NRTA said that micro dramas required a distribution licence before they could be aired.
In January this year, the China Netcasting Services Association (CNSA) released an industry initiative aimed at promoting professional ethics. This followed a micro drama with child brides aged 7 and 11 and a 15-year-old mother.
And as recently as April, the NRTA sought to cool down the ‘CEO romance’ genre of stories in which a powerful man sweeps a subordinate woman off her feet. (Isn’t the prince and the pauper tale embedded in folklore and fairy tales around the world.) It warned that these “glorify marriage with the powerful, wealthy, use storylines that flaunt wealth, power, or hedonism,” and more generally distort social values and present unrealistic depictions of relationships and social mobility.
And it was also only a couple of months since the NRTA unveiled a national “Micro-Drama Masterpiece Creation and Dissemination Plan”, with a target of 1,000 “excellent” micro dramas by the end of this year. These it defined as “profound in thought, exquisite in art, and excellent in production, grounded in socialist core values and Xi Jinping cultural thought.”
All very reminiscent of the chase seen a few years ago to regulate series production in China. Authorities cracked down on vulgarity, created a pay-scale for performers and even railed against effeminate men. Then the industry moved on.
For a feistier discussion of the developments, please tune in to Two the Point With Patrick Frater and Janine Stein:
And Now…. Documentary Micro Dramas
On Friday, it was announced that leading PRC micro drama firm COL Group has teamed up with Singapore-based Bomanbridge to create a natural history documentary series to COL’s Flareflow platform.
They said that “Magopo: The Lion Throne” was filmed in South Africa and and documents the rise and fall of a pride of lions. It is narrated by Sam Myerson, the star of earlier micro drama hits. The show will upload in the third quarter.
“Vertical storytelling has already entered its next chapter. ‘Mapogo: The Lion Throne’ is the perfect story to launch documentary as part of Vertical 2.0 because its emotional DNA already mirrors the very best premium scripted storytelling,” said Timothy Oh, GM of international business at COL and chief marketing officer at FlareFlow, in a statement. “This is one of wildlife’s most legendary true sagas, packed with all the betrayal, power, loss and suspense that vertical audiences connect with instinctively.”
“The same things that keep fans hooked on micro dramas, like intense drama, high stakes and shifting loyalties, are exactly what make these lions so fascinating. We are bringing that same fast-paced, gripping energy to a new documentary format of micro drama,” said Myerson.
