China remains a fascinating market. The film companies relied on a bumper harvest over Chinese New Year, and were wiped out by the virus. With a weak premium streaming market and huge competition in the jungle of online options, they need to take 80% of their revenue from cinemas.
The streaming drama market has been developing, and is growing faster as it learns to make short series and classier lower budget dramas. Bytedance, another huge company with tecchy tendencies, has targeted the streaming market and grabbed several major feature films sitting on the shelf in a puddle of financial tears, read the Netflix playbook and paid the owners out. Since then, they have been streaming them for free in a sure-fire way of getting attention, and they have the cash to bear the gesture.
