AI contentChina made 270,000 AI dramas in six months, and viewers say they can't stop seeing them
An MBC clip on China's actor-free AI dramas, posted Oct 18, passed 946,000 views. Per the video, about 270,000 AI short-form dramas were released in China in the first half, and a 30-episode, 40-minute AI series hit No. 1 in its time slot from its first episode. One former film studio now has 40 staff making one- to two-minute AI dramas.
Top comments included "If they flood the industry like that, only that will survive" (292 likes) and "I don't want to watch AI dramas but they keep popping up" (192). A KBS segment (116,000 views) covered allegations that AI dramas on a ByteDance platform used actor Jackson Yee's face and voice without permission.
Korea is already watching. Per Metro Seoul, the top three new entertainment app installs in Korea in August were all Chinese short-drama apps, and Korean users of such apps reached 2.98 million, 3.3 times a year earlier. China released 430,000 short dramas in January to August, over 90% made with AI.
Per the Korea Economic Daily on Oct 21, Chinese listed company COL Group said 55% of China's AI token use goes to short dramas and video generation versus 15% for software development; ByteDance disputed the figure.
