Mainland websites ordered to remove The Big Bang Theory and other foreign TV programmes
State media watchdog has ordered content-streaming websites on the mainland to remove four popular American television productions
Chinese authorities have ordered video streaming websites to stop showing four popular American TV shows, including The Big Bang Theory and The Good Wife, representatives from two sites said yesterday.
The move suggests government attention is intensifying on the online content-streaming industry, which is freer than state television and China’s cinemas to show foreign productions and other content and has stretched the boundaries of what can be seen in the country.
A spokeswoman for a leading online video site, Youku, said on Saturday it received an order from the media regulator to stop streaming the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, political and legal drama The Good Wife, crime drama NCIS and legal drama The Practice.
The order came from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, which did not provide an explanation for the ban, said the Youku spokeswoman.
A senior manager with another content-streaming website, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said his company received an order last week to “clean their website”. The order, identical to the one sent to Youku and other companies, also called for the immediate removal of a Chinese sit-com produced by Sohu, one of the mainland’s largest internet firms.
Calls to the regulator rang unanswered yesterday, and Sohu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.