According to Lotz, the difference between a portal and a channel is that switching between a channel and its content does not change the user experience, whereas a portal video site can offer features that can differentiate the user experience. Mareike Jenner builds on Lotz’s point by adding that TVIV is a re-imagining process that brings together the discourses of technology, audience behaviour, industry, policy, and national media systems. In other words, the production and broadcasting of a film or television production does not depend solely on its audience and commercial value.

Trans tv’s market in China is based on audience aesthetics and preferences. Around 2015, delay culture developed rapidly, with a proliferation of novels and films with homosexual themes. Among the works dealing with sexual orientation, male homosexuality occupies a larger market. Represented by <Addicted>, a straightforward TV series about homosexuality. Adapted from the novel <Are you addicted?>, it began airing in 2016 and was taken down from various mainland Chinese video sites a month after it aired (it has not yet finished). In my opinion, the drama itself is not in line with the social values that mainland China has been preaching, or the fact that the country has not yet entered a stage of transition in terms of social identity. Particularly as the first gay-themed step in mainland China, the level of audience and media discussion including interaction with the cast and crew has generated enough traffic to attract the attention of the Chinese Broadcasting and Television Administration, even though it is broadcast on a network television platform. in a report at the annual meeting of the Chinese television drama industry on 27 February 2016, Luo Jianhui, director of the Department of Network Audiovisual Programme Management of the General Administration of Radio, Film and Television, also noted that “Some web dramas specialise in portraying homosexual love affairs and have a prominent tendency to vulgarise them”, intentionally hitting the regulatory bottom line, which was seen as a statement from the regulator about the drama. The shelving of “Addicted” is also a sign that homosexual themes have become off-limits in mainland film and television.

Ziting Hu

Mareike Jenner (2018), ‘Introduction: Netflix and the Renvention of Television’, ‘Introduction: Binge Watching Netflix’, Netflix and the Reinvention of Television, pp. 18-19

Amanda Lotz (2017), ‘Theorizing the Nonlinear Distinction of Internet-Distributed Television’, Portals: A Treatise on Internet Distributed Television,

Zhuang, P. (2016) China tightens censorship of online TV programmes days after suspending shows featuring gay love, excessive sex and violence, South China Morning Post. Available at: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1918020/china-tightens-censorship-online-tv-programmes-days-after (Accessed: November 23, 2022).