Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
You're tuned in to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly today with Yushan and Feifei.
Coming up, binge watching ruled the last decade.
Entire seasons dropped at midnight.
And gone by sunrise because we watched every single episode.
But today, Gen Z is scrolling, streamers are staggering releases, and next episode isn't always a button.
So was the binge a revolution or a phase?
Today we'll break down why we watched what we watch and the way we watch it and find out if it's fracturing again and if it is, what that means for every show that we love.
You can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcasts.
And if you would like to get in touch with us, we would love that very much.
Roundtable Podcast at QQ.com.
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Once again, Roundtable Podcast at QQ.com.
For decades, watching television followed a simple rhythm.
One episode every week at the same time on the same channel.
If you missed an episode, you either waited for a replay or asked someone what happened.
Those were your options.
Then streaming changed everything.
Suddenly, viewers were no longer waiting for television.
Television was waiting for viewers.
Entire seasons could appear online overnight, allowing people to watch a story at their own pace.
The phrase, oh, just one more episode became a familiar part of everyday life.
But now the way we watch is changing again.
Streaming companies are reconsidering whether releasing an entire season at the same time is always the best approach.
Younger audiences are spending more time on short-form videos, while some popular shows are returning to weekly release to build anticipation.
So what happened to the binge-watching revolution?
Did streaming permanently change the way that stories are created?
Or are we simply entering another era where people experience stories in new ways?
And I think that that's true.
Our love of stories is not disappearing.
But the way we watch them, the frequency at which we watch them, it always seems to be changing.
From the Western country's point of view, I remember when...
Binge watching became a thing.
It was back in about 2013 when Netflix released a show called House of Cards.
Oh, that's a big hit in China too.
Oh, was it really?
Yeah.
Oh, I loved that show.
And people loved that show.
And the reason one of the reasons maybe
I mean, it was a great show, but I think another really big factor that helped with its popularity was the fact that you could watch the whole thing at the same time.
People's brains exploded.
Yeah, I think that's kind of a revolutionary idea back then when you have an entire season sitting there ready for you as long as you've got enough time for it.
Oh, we had time, Feifei.
We had time.
So much temptation.
And I think maybe that's the start of the binge watching practices for a lot of viewers that instead of asking yourself, when is the next episode?
You're asking, you know, after this, what should I watch next?
Yeah.
You know, and then this is, I think what streaming changed that the way people see things, watch things, you know, in the past, in the era of television, I remember
Every time, when you know, the moment you know when a TV drama was popular or a hit is that when you have an empty street with nobody's on the street at around 6 or 9 p.m. Because everybody was staying at home for that exact episode.
This is updating tonight.
Yep.
And that's the other thing that streaming changed it changed culture right because the watch
I don't know in china would you have watch parties for particular episodes like i remember my sisters
There was a show in the 19 80s 90s i didn't watch it myself called melrose place
And their friends used to come over for the weekly episode of Melrose Place.
It was on maybe Monday or Tuesday night and they would have these watch parties.
Would that be a thing here?
I think it's more of a family gathering.
Well, same concept, right?
But streaming changed all that as well.
So binge watching didn't just change how audiences watched, individual audience members watched.
It changed how families watched.
It changed part of culture where, like you said, Feifei, you wouldn't just talk about like, oh, did you see last night's episode?
No more, no such conversations.
Right?
You would talk about the season as a whole.
But it also changed, Yushan, it changed how writers had to write shows too.
Yeah, these days it totally has to be faster.
You can't expect a writer to half finish and half improvise throughout the shooting or the writing.
Episode releasing process, because previously I was trying to search for the name of that show in English, but in Chinese it's called, it's a major hit in China when like a few years ago, it's called Zhen Huan Zhuan, but I don't remember the English name.
I think it's something empress.
Yeah, the context is back in the Qing Dynasty, and that was the time when I first realized the strategy of the TV channels they're utilizing for television.
Something like TV shows.
It's meant for everybody to gather together to watch the TV at that particular hour and they only release two episodes per day and it lasts for like a whole month if not more because it's got 50 or what, 70 episodes?
Yeah, I think 60, 70 episodes.
It's very common for Chinese TV dramas.
So here in China that whole storytelling is always, as far as we can remember, is always separated into smaller chunks that you get to have.
Like being blessed to have every day.
And in order to keep up with it, you always have to watch it every day.
Stick to that TV channel that's luring everybody in at that evening hour and keep on following it until it ends.
And if you miss it,
You're going to have to be excluded from the discussion of it the next day and you'll feel sorry for yourself.
Yeah.
So, I mean, people fell in love with binge watching, right?
It just fit perfectly into society.
I don't know if it was perfect timing.
Or what other factors were at play.
The writers, it allowed them to develop much more complicated storylines and longer, slower character development.
So maybe from the writer's perspective, they love...
This kind of model so that you can have a real complete structure for your stories.
Instead, I remember when watching Friends, I remember the producing production crew talking about they have to adjust the storyline by the weekly data they received from the television.
If, for example, the rating drops, then you need to make some changes to either the storyline to even the roles, even characters within the story.
But now you don't have to do that.
It's purely your creation.
I bet the writers love this kind of model.
I mean, if you look at Game of Thrones, was Game of Thrones popular in China as well?
Yeah, 100%.
Like in high school.
If you look at Game of Thrones as an example, I mean, that's just a very slow developing storyline, right?
Where the writers, and of course they were following from books, kind of.
It allowed them more freedom, I think.
They didn't have to stick to the, we need a cliffhanger at the end of every episode.
We need to design it in a certain way to get people to come back.
The whole point of this is that it was so successful.
You know, binging was so successful.
So why then are streaming companies now considering making a change away from this model?
One big reason is that binge watching can create a short burst of attention.
Like the example you just mentioned, Game of Thrones.
I abandoned it halfway because one of my favorite characters got butchered.
I think every character got butchered in Game of Thrones.
But at the very beginning, the huge passion it raised among audiences, that's what HBO was looking for at the very beginning.
Not necessarily a long-lasting relationship with one show, but yeah, how many attention we're harnessing at the beginning.
Same for Netflix.
Their own viewing data shows that audiences are still watching huge amounts of content.
And in the first half of this year, Netflix users watched more than 97 billion hours of programming globally.
That's a lot.
Yep, but the company has also increasingly focused on quality of engagement, not just for the total number of hours watched, because keeping audience connected to shows over time has become more important.
Yeah, because when it comes to a binge release, I mean, releasing a whole season right there, you sort of also give away that discussion, the public conversation phase.
The interest level.
Yeah, I think it would be nice that people start to talk about for the first week, for the entire season.
But after that, the discussion can quickly move on to the next one.
And the thing that I said before about how people would have...
In the old style of TV, the old style of the way we consumed our TV shows, you would have a conversation about an episode.
But with binging, you would finish the season in a weekend.
And a lot of people would do this.
And then you're talking about the season as opposed to details within an episode.
And you're probably only going to have that conversation once or maybe a couple of times because you've already moved on.
Yeah I mean when we're still talking about for example Game of Thrones this weekend
Very quickly somebody else probably would jump into that conversation did you watch that other show
It was really good as well and then you scheduled a binge watching for a second show the next weekend
Which character got butchered of yours by the way Robb Stark oh
Yeah, I used to fail for characters like that.
Kind of heroic, Big Brother Rose.
Was it him or the dog?
Oh, no, that was Jon Snow that had the dog.
No, not Jon Snow.
Everybody has a dog.
Not Jon Snow.
Everybody had a dog or a wolf.
But anyway, I think it also has something to do with the kind of the content theme of the TV show in the first place.
What do you mean?
For example, if it's just love story or if it's like family storyline, then knowing what's going on 30 episodes later and how it is like in the beginning doesn't really make too much of a difference.
You kind of know where it's going to go after a few watch at the very beginning already.
But if it's like suspense, which is my favorite genre, you can't go to the last one unless you finish all
The previous episodes to know what happened and to know, you know, suspect which one is the murder and then eventually, ah, this feels good.
I finally know the result of the crime or etc.
So depending on the genre, I think that's also the consideration of a lot of the Chinese producers, especially online streaming platforms too, that releasing it once in a whole package will kind of lower the expectations of the viewers.
Since they're not looking for that particular genre or their expectation for the story is faster or slower, depending on what you're booking.
Younger audiences have different expectations because those younger audiences have been conditioned by platforms like Instagram.
Um you know youtube shorts or tick tock or any short any short form video platform right it's changed our patience level
So when we talked about you know in the west how netflix changed the way we watch in terms of binge watching
Did that happen here in China where platforms have platforms for the last decade or so been putting out entire seasons of stuff?
You told me just a few minutes ago that a season might have 70 episodes in it.
I think for Chinese TV dramas, we don't normally have the concept of seasons.
There are no seasons.
Yeah, we just release the TV drama, for example, 50 or 70 episodes.
That's very common for Chinese TV dramas.
At least for 10, 20 years ago, that's...
We won't be talking about a second season on the plan for the next year because we are thinking the story has finished with these 70 episodes.
And I think also when it comes to the generation of the revenues for this production is also very different.
Yes.
When it comes to a platform like Netflix, a large part of their revenues rely on the subscription fees people paid into it.
Yes, and the problem with that, with releasing a season at a time, is that people will, if they're really interested in a show, they'll get a one-month subscription.
They'll watch the show.
Oh.
And then they'll cancel their subscription.
And that's also a major reason why platforms now, not just Netflix, they'll put out a half season, right?
And then they'll wait a couple of months and they'll put out the rest of the season.
Sneaky.
I'm mad at this platform.
It's so annoying.
It is so annoying.
But I get it because from a business point of view, number one, you've got the cultural impact.
You've got people who are talking about it for longer.
But also from a business standpoint, you need those people to be subscribed for a longer period of time.
Similarly in China, I think it was before 2015, about 10 years ago, the only way for online streaming platforms to acquire the right to play a certain TV show was to purchase it from TV channels.
Or the producer who owns that copyright.
They usually don't create stuff themselves.
But after 2015, 2018, it's becoming more popular for them to create shows themselves so that they have a bigger say of how it's going to be released.
And that's around the time, 2018, when it starts to get popular for...
Streaming platforms to release a whole season just like that.
But yeah, it has its advantage, it has its disadvantage.
And yeah, for them, the biggest selling point was to attract or harness a big amount of fans and subscribers in a very short period of time.
But it doesn't always work like that.
Yeah, I think they tried in 2018, 2019, and they figured out it's not working, at least in the Chinese scenario, because a large part of their revenues really rely on the advertisements that even today on any streaming platforms in China, you will still see as before, during and after the show.
And that's the big part of their profits.
They're not relying on subscription, of course, on a lot of Chinese streaming platforms, we also can pay to subscribe.
But that's more of give you more, releasing more episodes for a subscriber, rather than to those who didn't really pay any money to the platform.
And also they have like different strategy.
I remember I watched a very, very famous
Uh suspension tv drama um but when for the last three episodes even for a subscriber like me i still need to pay three yuan per episode if i want to watch the finale before everybody else
Yeah it's time
Oh, if you want to watch it before everybody else.
So I paid 9 yuan in total.
Oh, that's such a tempting price too.
Because it's not expensive at all.
Yeah, so I paid 9 yuan.
But then I was annoyed because I'm already a subscriber.
I already paid like 200, 300 yuan for a whole year.
Do you know what I do?
I do this when I eat dinner.
Why am I not surprised?
What?
I'm always eating.
Everything I do is what I'm eating.
So on Chinese cable, if you turn on your TV, then you will be shown like the first few minutes of a movie.
It's not a trailer.
It's like the first six minutes?
It's seven minutes.
And so what I'll do is I'll just watch seven minutes of three movies while I'm eating dinner.
And I feel like I won because I didn't pay anything.
But I...
Somehow feel like i'm on the system like i beat the system i feel like i know what the movie is about like a little tiny bit
I think I've actually done similar things before.
They must not be movies you truly want to watch.
Well, it's just whatever's on the main screen.
But yeah, that also leads to, you know, challenges for the platforms themselves as well, because you have to be compelling in the first place.
One episode or six, seven minutes.
Yeah, they got to hook you.
They have to hook you.
And it's different now, isn't it?
By the way, did you know Netflix is considering going back like in the other direction?
A weekly release?
Not just weekly release, but like always on channel.
Like bundling with other channels too.
I think they're still in the discussion phases right now.
I was reading about it.
Like cable television, just always on.
So like a particular brand or a particular genre, I mean.
So it might be about, I don't know,
Cooking or like a cooking channel where it's just on just like just like it is on TV, because, you know, there you have TV advertisements that can't be skipped.
Oh, that's true.
Can't be skipped over.
You have to watch it.
Right.
So it's just it's good for business.
The short forms have taken off here in China.
The micro dramas have taken off here in China.
But by the sounds of what you're explaining to me, the two things kind of exist without...
Hurting each other
You mean the binge watching and also short drama
Well you've got your longer dramas where you don't divide it into seasons but you just put out 70 episodes which i mean same six of one half a dozen of another right and
Just divide it season one, two or three or don't.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah.
So you've got that that's still quite successful.
But then you've got your short form video platforms that are still very successful.
And you've got your micro dramas, which are also extremely successful.
So my point is everything seems to be.
A-okay here and coexist yeah and one is not really suffering because of the other
Well i think they definitely put challenges on one another but yeah because they cater to different demands on the market
When it comes to those 70 episodes long dramas i think what people are looking for are sentiments emotions personal development
History background a real long story that you can immerse yourself in like today
This year's star is the protagonist which god
That's the name of the show
Yeah i think he's one of the top tv dramas on the cable in china this year
But and then on the other hand when you go on your
Your mobile phone you want the short quick micro dramas that you can finish within one or two hours you know you can finish one drama within one night what can I do both
At the same time.
Yeah, you can do both.
You watch the protagonist after dinner.
The protagonist is on the TV and it's going slowly narrative.
You gotta learn to watch like Feifei watches.
And I think I'm seeing these two blending in with each other because this year we see another TV drama called The Pursuit of Jade, Zhu Yu.
That one's really famous.
Yeah, it was really, really famous.
I think it was even on Netflix.
It's also one of the top viewing shows on Netflix as well.
It's because it's a long drama with multiple episodes, but also the way they design their story is in the structure of a microdrama.
So you have the ups and downs very fast.
So that's why you can't start binge watching a show like this.
And that's maybe the future of a TV drama.
I don't know.
Well, yeah, I think it's a little bit surprising that in the West they're going back in that direction, but they're just trying to figure out how they can make the most money while keeping the most viewers happy.
Yeah.
Same everywhere.
Yeah.
And whatever formula gets that done, that's what they'll do.
I like my little seven minute films, by the way.
The only negative part is that it starts from the very beginning.
You know what I mean?
Show all the logos.
It's like 30 seconds.
What if you really like it?
We'll go back and watch the whole thing.
Well, I haven't yet.
But who knows what 2026 has in store for me, Yushan.
