China and UK swap places in TV rankings

China is now the world's second largest Television market in terms of spending on production and commissions.

Chinese spending on TV programming and commision now tops that of the UK for the first time. [File photo: IC]

That's after the latest data showed that Chinese TV stations spent more than their UK counterparts for the first time in 2017.

A large part of the growth in the Chinese television market has come from a burgeoning online marketplace for streaming services.

This has seen record spending from the likes of Alibaba and Tencent on original programming.

The news comes at a record time for mutual interest between British and Chinese television productions.

For example, in 2017 we reported that BBC programme Blue Planet II had been viewed in China over 80 million times just after launch.

To put that figure in perspective, it's greater than the entire population of Great Britain!

The programme is voiced by BBC veteran wildlife presenter Sir David Attenborough.

Blue Planet is not the first recent British programme to become a big hit with Chinese viewers.

In September, we reported that children’s cartoon Peppa Pig has been viewed in China a staggering 34 billion times.

That was according to the company behind the hit series, which airs in 180 countries around the world, Entertainment One.

What makes Peppa Pig’s success in China all the more impressive is the fact that she was first available to Chinese viewers in 2015 – so those views have all occurred in the last two years.

Peppa is also proving to be successful on Chinese social media platforms, with a growing presence on Weibo and WeChat.