Booming Demand for TV on the Internet in China

Internet TV has arrived in China. Every month, about 300 million people in China are using a computer to watch Chinese TV dramas, Japanese and Korean sitcoms, and even American films and television series like "Twilight" and "Gossip Girl."

Live streaming of the recent World Cup also drew a huge online audience. Analysts say young people in China are even starting to favor free laptop-viewing over TV sets, in part as a way to make an end run around regulators, who often bar state-run TV networks from broadcasting shows that do not meet the approval of the Communist Party. It is a momentous shift in viewing habits that has not gone unnoticed by the authorities in Beijing. They are tightening oversight of online video sites and also pushing state-run television networks to form their own Internet TV sites in an effort to retain control over what viewers can watch online. In addition, the country's big Web portals and search engines — including Baidu — are scrambling to form competing video sites, many of which plan to license content from the United States and elsewhere.