The current state of China's internet is inseparable from the exit of television; is television making a comeback now?

Over the past decade or more, tremendous changes have taken place in the lifestyles of Chinese people, one of the most notable of which is the phasing out of traditional TV. For people of all ages, from all social strata and across all geographical locations, TV is no longer an indispensable part of family entertainment. Anytime and anywhere, people have got used to watching videos, live streams and playing games on their mobile phones, with at most a tablet as an additional device; even PCs rank higher than TV in people's preference, often by a large margin.

Don't assume that only young people no longer watch TV. I have visited many elders' homes, where their TVs are almost always turned off, and they spend all their free time scrolling on their mobile phones. Only seniors aged 70 or 80 and above who are truly unable to use mobile phones still watch TV, yet TV is extremely difficult for them to operate, and they cannot turn it on and watch it without younger family members around. Many seniors have even forced themselves to learn how to use smartphones, because no matter how tricky a smartphone is to use, it is far more user-friendly than a smart TV set-top box...

Indeed, the phasing out of TV is largely attributed to the overly poor usability of smart TV set-top boxes. In the past, every time I went back to my hometown for the Spring Festival, my biggest headache was figuring out "which remote control is for what function", followed by "which button to press first and which to press next". Later, I simply stopped touching the TV and started watching movies on my laptop. Please don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think this is the only reason, but it is definitely one of the most critical ones. If smartphones and tablets were as difficult to operate as smart TVs, they would not have retained many users either.

Some people may retort: "The decline of TV is inevitable in the mobile internet era, and nothing can save it!" Aha, I never get tired of talking about this topic, because I have been researching the US TV market recently. Unlike some domestic analysts who make groundless assumptions out of thin air, the US TV market is still a vibrant one. I would like to cite the following sets of data.

User Duration: Americans aged 15 and above spend an average of 2.61 hours watching TV every day. This figure has dropped by 8.7% from its peak of 2.86 hours in 2021, but the 2021 data was affected by well-known special circumstances and has limited reference value. Compared with 2016, when the average daily viewing time was 2.73 hours, the average time Americans spend watching TV has only decreased by 4.4% over the entire ten-year period.

Supplement on User Duration: On any given day, users who actually turn on their TV watch it for an average of 3.51 hours. In colder months, such as winter, the average daily viewing duration will soar to 4.6 to 5.0 hours. Staying at home and watching TV on cold days is a very common choice for Americans.

The Rise of CTV: 49% of American households watch connected TV (CTV) every day, which refers to streaming platform content played via smart TVs. The average American household subscribes to 4 paid streaming services, spending 76 US dollars per month. You can roughly estimate the total size of paid streaming revenue across the United States by yourself.

Supplement on CTV Data: In August 2026, 15.8% of all TV viewing time across the United States was attributed to YouTube, and 7.7% to Netflix. Adding Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Apple TV+, HBO Max and other platforms, the total share of streaming platforms in all US TV viewing time has long exceeded 50%.

If domestic long-video platforms could get an average monthly subscription revenue of 76 US dollars from each Chinese household, they would definitely be over the moon. In fact, not to mention 76 US dollars, even 7.6 US dollars is far out of reach, and there is huge uncertainty over whether they can even reach 0.76 US dollars at present (since two of the three major video platforms do not publish their financial reports).

Subscription revenue is only one aspect. The US TV advertising market is also huge. Its total advertising revenue is expected to reach 81.3 billion US dollars in 2026, a slight decline from 83.6 billion US dollars in 2022. However, the decline is mainly concentrated in traditional TV advertising, while connected TV (CTV) advertising maintains double-digit growth, and will hit a record high of 29.3 billion US dollars this year. Even without checking financial reports, we all know that the combined advertising revenue of the three major domestic video platforms, plus Mango TV, Bilibili and Xigua Video, is only a tiny fraction of the above figure...

The large number of figures listed above only serve to illustrate one fact: the phasing out of TV is not a globally inevitable trend, but a specific trend in the Chinese market. I do not advocate making unconditional comparisons between China and the United States, as the two countries have vastly different economic and social environments; however, comparisons to a certain extent are feasible. When an average American user spends 2 to 3 hours watching TV every day and subscribes to 4 streaming platforms per month, while an average Chinese user barely watches TV and hardly subscribes to any streaming services, you can clearly sense a certain incongruity.

By the way, TV has not been phased out in Japan, South Korea and China's Taiwan region either, where connected TV is also a booming trend in recent years, and the commercialization level of long-video streaming platforms is also very high. I will not list the specific data here, and I believe everyone is proficient in using search engines and generative AI tools.

I would like to emphasize again: many people attribute the decline of TV in China to the fact that "Chinese people do not have a living room culture" and "young people work too much overtime to have time for TV". These are of course part of the reasons, but if they are the whole story, we should have seen that elderly people are still addicted to TV, and people with relatively easy jobs or no need to work in offices are also still addicted to TV. The reality is that almost no one, regardless of age or how busy they are at work, is addicted to TV. If anyone still has doubts about this point, they are welcome to conduct a simple survey among their relatives and friends.

The "premature decline" of TV in the Chinese market has triggered a series of consequences, among which only the most notable ones are discussed below:

• The entertainment time of Chinese users is further concentrated on mobile terminals;
• Short videos and vertical-screen videos have fully replaced medium and long videos;
• Users are becoming increasingly impatient and prefer content that is fast-paced and delivers instant satisfaction;
• The scenario of family fun where several people watch the same screen together has almost disappeared.

The massive boom of AI-generated short dramas/manhua dramas this year is of course inseparable from the progress of large video models on the supply side, and on the demand side it is the inevitable product of years of development of the above trends. With or without AI-generated manhua dramas, users are already barely watching long videos, they have no patience anymore, and they no longer value family shared viewing. As early as around 2021, short dramas perfectly matched their needs, so the erosion of long-video platforms by short drama platforms such as Hongguo began from then on. AI-generated short manhua dramas have further strengthened this trend, tightening the noose around the necks of long-video platforms, and that is all there is to it.

I would like to add one point: the trend that users are "becoming more impatient" and increasingly pursuing fast-paced content with instant satisfaction is not inevitable, nor is it necessarily irreversible. You can conduct a simple experiment: watching the same video content on a mobile phone held with one or both hands, versus watching it on a TV while lying on the sofa, are two completely different experiences; watching it in a cinema is even more different. The weight of the mobile phone, its close distance to the human eye, and the resulting sense of oppression... All these factors will reduce people's patience, making them eager to see the "exciting payoff" as soon as possible. You might as well try to rewatch a recent favorite movie on your smartphone (holding it with both hands), and it is already quite impressive if you can stay focused for more than three minutes!

My conclusion is very clear: device scenarios and user behavior are mutually reinforcing, and neither unilaterally determines the other. We cannot simply and crudely assume that TV has declined because users are impatient and do not want to watch long videos anymore. What actually happened is more like that TV declined first, users lost the best scenario for watching long videos, and as a result they became even less willing to watch long videos - which in turn made TV decline even further. This vicious cycle has been continuing with or without AI, and AI only acts as an accelerator.

On August 31 this year, China Radio and Television released a centralized procurement announcement for an "integrated TV adapter", and put forward the vision of "creating an extremely simplified terminal form": users can access all types of TV services on one TV, equipped with a universal remote control that supports one-click power on/off and one-click access to channel programs... In other words, the usage threshold of TV will be reduced to the level of 20 years ago, before smart TVs came into existence.

Don't get me wrong, set-top boxes will still exist in practice, but they will be inserted into the TV's USB interface in the form of a small adapter, with simplified software and hardware operations. Some new smart TVs will integrate the set-top box function, but this by no means means "no set-top box exists". There is no indication that the connected TV license system (8 integrated licenses and 16 content licenses) and the cooperation model with streaming platforms will change at present, and I do not think it is likely to change in the coming period of time.

Is this good news for TV? Definitely yes. At least for elderly users, operation difficulty is the biggest obstacle, and even a partial solution to this problem is a great thing. There are also young and middle-aged users who are willing to watch TV. If in the future they only need one remote control and can watch programs immediately after turning on the TV, their enthusiasm will be greatly restored. For the long-video industry, which has been stuck in a long-term demand trough, any good news is worth celebrating. Just like after a long drought, even a few drops of rain are better than no rain at all.

But we cannot overestimate the impact of this change. The decline of TV has lasted for more than a decade, almost half a generation. The new generation of young people have grown up in an environment where they barely watch TV, and the viewing habits of middle-aged and elderly people have long shifted to mobile terminals. The DAU of Hongguo Short Drama has already exceeded the sum of the four major video platforms (iQiyi, Tencent Video, Youku, Mango TV). I estimate that the newly launched Lvpaopao Short Drama will also surpass one of the four major video platforms in terms of DAU after a period of time. This trend has been running for far too long. At this moment, measures such as removing external set-top boxes and simplifying remote controls obviously cannot dramatically reverse the situation.

In a relatively optimistic scenario, if the TV scenario can recapture a single-digit share of entertainment time from smartphones and tablets, that would already be a huge relief. That would mean a redistribution of tens of billions of dollars in commercial value, which is worth celebrating for long-video platforms, film and television production companies, production teams, performers and other related parties. "To a hungry man, boiled sweet potato in plain water is a feast." - It is said that this sentence was said by President Lincoln, but I have never found the original text.

In the long run, even if the operation threshold problem is solved, the decisive factor for TV to revive is still the quality and richness of content. Content quality is related to technology, but it is not completely determined by technology. I would very much like to expand on this topic, but this article has already been too long. Considering many other factors, I decide not to discuss it here, and hope to have the opportunity to write a special article on this in the future.

PS: I own an 85-inch smart TV, and I have a dedicated audio-visual room for it, but I do not subscribe to cable TV services, nor am I a paid member of any domestic streaming platform (except for sports event services).

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Internet Phantom Thieves Group" (ID: TMTphantom), author: Pei Pei, Head of the Phantom Thieves Group, published with authorization from 36Kr.