China tightens vertical drama rules to curb distorted social values
Authorities say more than 25,000 non-compliant vertical dramas have already been removed as scrutiny shifts towards scripts and approvals.
- China's media regulator is tightening rules for the "vertical drama" industry to curb content that promotes distorted social values, such as the glorification of wealth and unrealistic romantic fantasies.
- The crackdown targets popular but problematic themes like "billionaire falls in love with an ordinary woman," which are seen as encouraging materialism and creating misleading impressions of real life, especially for younger viewers.
- Authorities have already removed over 25,000 non-compliant dramas and plan to escalate controls by 2026, shifting from post-publication removal to pre-production scrutiny of scripts, titles, and characters.
- The new regulations are expected to force producers to adjust their business models away from extreme, click-chasing plots and increase filtering and censorship costs for streaming platforms.
China is pressing ahead with a new round of tighter controls on the “vertical drama” industry after the media regulator announced moves to bring order to short-form content on fast-growing digital platforms, especially exaggerated romantic plots of the “billionaire company president madly in love with a poor young woman” type, which are viewed as distorting social values and encouraging unrealistic fantasies among large numbers of viewers.
The government said it had already ordered the removal of more than 25,000 non-compliant vertical dramas, equivalent to almost 1.4 million episodes nationwide.
The latest measures come after China’s vertical drama market expanded rapidly as consumers turned to quick viewing on smartphones.
Each episode lasts only 1-3 minutes, focuses on ending with a compelling and emotionally charged hook, and encourages continuous viewing.
As a result, content such as “marriage that turns a life around”, “lavish-spending company president”, and “billionaire falls in love with an ordinary woman” has become a formula that many producers have rushed to repeat to drive up view counts.
However, China’s National Radio and Television Administration sees this popularity as beginning to have a broad negative impact, because much of the content uses images of extreme wealth, social mobility through romance and implausible success to create misleading impressions of real life, especially among teenage and working-age viewers who have become the main audience base for vertical drama platforms.
The latest information indicates that, although China had already cleared more than 25,000 rule-breaking titles during the first phase of the clean-up, in 2026 the authorities are escalating from retrospective removals to controls at the source of production, with tighter scrutiny of scripts, titles, character creation and pre-release approval systems to reduce the production of vertical dramas focused on vulgarity, materialism and exaggerated fantasy storylines.
Analysts view the move as a clear sign that Beijing has begun to see vertical dramas not merely as low-cost entertainment, but as a machine for producing influence over ideas that reaches hundreds of millions of users a day.
If billionaire, elite and cross-class romance plots are allowed to continue dominating feeds, they could further reinforce values that glorify money and power among young people, which the Chinese government wants to curb seriously.
The tightening is expected to force producers of vertical dramas in China to make a major adjustment to their business models, moving from competition based on extreme plots and click-chasing to content subject to stricter scrutiny, while streaming platforms and short-drama apps may also have to shoulder higher filtering and censorship costs.
Laotian Times
