At the Wall Street Journal, Lilian Lin reports that U.S.-based on demand Internet video service Netflix is looking to bring its content to China, a country that tightly controls the Internet and last year rolled out new limits on foreign content allowed to stream from Chinese websites:
Netflix Inc. is in talks with Chinese online broadcasting companies about bringing its content to China, executives at the Chinese companies said. The move comes after Netflix executives said they plan an aggressive global push as subscriber growth slows in the U.S.
[…] “We would love to cooperate with Netflix considering its global influence,” said Xu Feng, vice president of Shanghai-based BesTV New Media Co. “But we need to take note of the obstacles, including policy restrictions on foreign online content.”
[…] The Wasu executive said the company has talked with Netflix several times since February about bringing Netflix content to mobile phones, video-streaming and Internet TV in China. “We are still taking time to know each other better because America’s content industry is very different from China’s,” said the executive with the Hangzhou-based Wasu.
In a letter to investors in January, Netflix said its preference is to “operate a small service in China centered on our original and other globally-licensed content.” [Source]
Netflix original series House of Cards has enjoyed massive popularity in China. The Wall Street Journal notes that the third season, which wasn’t made available on Chinese streaming sites as the first two were, was most pirated by users in China.
