Two issues dominate conversations about mainland China’s entertainment industry as 2025 draws to a close – the vertical microdrama boom, with revenues overtaking movie/box-office, and Japan replacing Korea in China’s political penalty box. In between is the soaring quality of China’s long-form serialised drama, courtesy in some way of Korean-storytelling-envy on the domestic front and, also by heightened interest from Asian buyers looking for cost-effective alternatives to Korean drama. 

Among the premium TV titles of the moment is Huace Media’s lavish period drama, "Swords into Ploughshares", which Huace says has so far been picked up in Thailand (Dec 2025) and will stream on iQiyi, Tencent Video and Mango TV; and Linmon Media’s "Only Thirty Five", a sequel to spectacularly popular "Nothing But Thirty" (5.5 billion views on Tencent Video and adaptations in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Korea).

A story about the power of second chances, "Only Thirty Five", taps into China’s long-held – and much of the time barely-reciprocal – engagement with the global community. Nevertheless, with cross-border collaboration so high on the global agenda, the show’s inclusion of  Singapore’s Mediacorp speaks to a trend sweeping the world’s production environment. 

Linmon Media’s chairman/founder Su Xiao is unequivocal about the benefits and the “strategic priority” of overseas expansion. “The co-creation concept breaks the one-way nature of traditional cultural output,” she said during the recent deal signing ceremony in Singapore. 

Huace founder Zhao Yifang also has her eye on the international upside: “Our mission remains unchanged: to tell universal human emotions and themes from a Chinese perspective, and to present aesthetics understood by the world through Eastern artistry,” she says. 

That brand of Eastern artistry has been left in the dust (or perhaps it is being applied, just in a different way?) by the world’s biggest entertainment boom – micro/vertical formats. The micro space is currently dominated by drama; reality titles are  emerging. 

China remains the world’s micro engine, with three of the global top 10 platforms in scale and revenue –  ReelShort, DramaBox, ShortMax – tracing their roots to the mainland. There are also GoodShort, FlexTV, Playlet, newcomer FlareFlow, among others. Even when apps are Singapore-registered or U.S.-facing, most trace their IP, production model or capital back to China. 

Exuberance aside, there are so many what-ifs and things to watch. Among them: A plethora of rival platforms, including Korea’s Vigloo, are gaining ground, and major activity is being reported out of India although for now it looks like a domestic story. We’re being advised to keep an eye on Snap, Amazon and Meta. And, while the vertical growth story is powerful, the profitability? Not so much. And there’s the impact of AI, with benefits unlikely to spread out evenly across the creative ecosystem... 2026 is not – clearly – going to be a dull year.      
In numbers
Population .............................    1.41 billion
Households ................................    496 million
Avg household size .............................    2.60
National cable TV households...165-170m
Digital TV households.........200-203 million
Pay-TV households ............    408-412 million
TV coverage (population) ..............    99.8%
Radio coverage (population) .........    99.7%
Production of TV prog... 3.15m-3.25 hours
- News ................................... 1.234m hours
- TV Drama ...........................    157,000 hours
- Variety TV shows ................    281,000 hours
- Documentaries ....................    84,000 hours
- Animation ...........................    137,000 hours
- Public Service Ads .............    106,000 hours
- Others .........................    1.211 million hours
TV broadcasting time (hrs)....19.27 million
- News/info (hours) ................ 3.947 million
- Variety TV/game shows (hrs)....... 1.733m
- Drama shows (hours) ...........    6.858 million
- Commercial TV (hours) .......    2.281 million
- Others (hours) ......................    4.449 million
Internet users ..........................    1.092 billion
Internet penetration rate ................    77.5%
Broadband internet users ........    636 million

Source: The Statistical Communiqué of the People’s Republic of China on National Economic and Social Development (2024, as of 1 March 2025), China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), Statistical Bulletin on the Development  of the Radio, Film and Television Industry

Published in The Big List China | November 2025 edition