AI Dramas Are on the Schedule Now: What Chinese Platforms Are Airing

AI-generated drama in China is no longer a demo reel. Since the end of August 2026, a series with no human actors has aired in the 8 p.m. prime-time slot of a provincial satellite channel, a second AI programme followed a month later on the same channel, and streaming platforms are releasing AI series, AI feature films and AI "artists" under their own names.

Two terms help with the rest. A satellite channel (shangxing, 上星, literally "going up to the satellite") is a provincial broadcaster's channel that carries its programming nationwide, and a prime-time slot (huangjindang, 黄金档) is the evening block that the channel sells at its highest advertising rates. AIGC, short for "AI-generated content", is the label Chinese platforms and regulators use for material made with generative models.

AI on prime-time television

The clearest case is The Later Journey to the West (后西游记), made by Mango TV (芒果TV), the streaming arm of Hunan Broadcasting, and aired by its sister channel Hunan Satellite TV (湖南卫视). It premiered on August 31, 2026, at 6 p.m. on Mango TV, with the prime-time broadcast the same evening, according to Xinhua. It is a sequel to the classic Journey to the West story, set a thousand years after the pilgrimage, and its first season is planned for 30 episodes of about 40 minutes in three arcs. The characters, sets and performances are all generated. We covered the show in The Later Journey to the West: A Mythological Series With No Human Actors on Chinese Prime-Time TV.

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The series was built on Mango Lingchuang (芒果灵创, "Mango Spirit Creation"), the broadcaster's in-house AIGC platform. Xinhua reports that the project has produced 109 character assets and 143 scene assets, which stay in a library for reuse, and that the platform adds a virtual camera, three-dimensional lighting and a skeleton-control system meant to hold body proportions steady. Xinhua and the production team call it the first domestic AIGC long-form drama made under a "review while airing" arrangement (bianshen bianbo, 边审边播), in which production, regulatory review and broadcast overlap so that later episodes can be adjusted along the way. Chinese media later reported that the team made the five episodes of the second arc in 20 days and redid three and a half of them after viewer feedback.

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A different kind of AI programme followed on the same channels. Eternal: The Life of Xin Zhui (永恒：辛追的一生, our translation) aired on September 30, according to Science and Technology Daily (科技日报), as a one-off special in six narrative segments. It portrays the life of Lady Xin Zhui, the noblewoman buried at Mawangdui in Hunan, using archaeological finds from the tombs as the basis for its scenes and objects. Its academic adviser is Yu Yanjiao (喻燕姣) of the Hunan Provincial Museum, and it was produced jointly by Hunan Satellite TV's programme centre and Mango TV's AIGC Innovation Content Center, with Mango Lingchuang providing technology. The newspaper calls it the first AIGC drama to reconstruct Western Han history.

Short series with AI performers on streaming

The second type is shorter and stakes a different claim. Liao Bu Qi A Peng You (了不起啊朋友, "Remarkable, My Friend" in a rough gloss) is a six-episode drama of about 10 minutes per episode about a former youth judo champion who returns to the ring to pay for his brother's surgery. It began on October 14 in Mango TV's Lingchuang Theater slot. Its cast is five performers that Mango TV announced on October 12 as original "AI artists": Cheng Du (程渡), Fang Yu (方屿), Lin Enna (林恩娜), Qi Xu (戚许) and Zhan Yan (展颜). Mango TV says they were generated from scratch and are not digital copies of real celebrities. Each has a persona and a Weibo account carrying an "AI artist" label, with human agents and human screenwriters behind them. We reported the announcement in Mango TV unveils five "AI artists" and a six-episode AI drama and wrote a guide, Liao Bu Qi A Peng You: Mango TV's Six-Episode Judo Drama Starring Five AI Artists. Mango TV and the outlets repeating its account call the launch the first in mainland China of a batch of native virtual actors under a full agency model.

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Licensed faces on streaming

iQIYI (爱奇艺) has taken two other routes. At its autumn showcase in Shanghai on September 23, the platform announced Not Envying Mandarin Ducks, Only Envying Immortals (不羡鸳鸯只羡仙), presented as a serial built on the licensed likenesses of two actors, Shen Yujie (沈羽洁) and Chen Heyi (陈鹤一). Reports say it will run for three seasons, with the first due in the fourth quarter of 2026, and that the whole production is AI-made. Jiemian (界面), a Chinese business outlet, describes the result as animated figures with an AI look rather than the actors themselves. Our news report has the details.

iQIYI also releases feature-length AI films under a theatre label named for the cinematographer Peter Pau (鲍德熹), which a financial outlet, Wall Street CN, says put out 16 works in the first quarter of 2026.

The mass market of AI micro-dramas

Beneath these showcase titles sits a far larger volume of AI micro-drama, the vertical short-episode format that spread across Chinese social video. The Sixth Tone news site, citing a State Council Information Office press conference in September, reports that more than 90 percent of the 430,000 ultra-short dramas released in China in the first eight months of 2026 were AI-generated. The National Radio and Television Administration, the national broadcast regulator, has set up a tiering notice for AI micro-dramas that took effect on July 1: a series with investment of 800,000 yuan or more, or a sensitive subject, is managed as a "key" micro-drama, one between 300,000 and 800,000 yuan on an ordinary subject as an "ordinary" one, and anything below 300,000 yuan as an "other" one. Separate national measures on labelling AI-generated content, issued by the internet regulator with three other bodies, have applied since September 1, 2025, and distinguish explicit labels that users can notice from implicit labels embedded in file data.

Why platforms are making it

Cost is the reason most often given. A CCTV Finance report, carried by the investor site Gelonghui, says quotes for standard AI short dramas have fallen from about 5,000 yuan a minute to a few hundred yuan, close to cost, while customised work still commands 10,000 to 20,000 yuan a minute. In its first-quarter earnings, according to Wall Street CN, iQIYI said it would use AI to cut content production costs and speed up production. The regulator's tiering notice itself acknowledges that AI has lowered production costs.

The review calendar is the second factor. Mango TV and state media describe the "review while airing" arrangement used for The Later Journey to the West as one in which production, review and broadcast overlap, so that later episodes can be adjusted in response to review and audience feedback. Xinhua also stresses the reusable library of characters, scenes and props, which lets a team avoid designing each one from scratch.

For the artist model, Chinese reports on Mango TV's strategy cite a different set of reasons: a virtual performer does not age, fall ill, clash with a shooting schedule or cause a scandal, and the platform owns it.

What viewers say

Chinese reactions to the long-form series have been divided. Fans quoted by China News Service praised the scale of the battle scenes in The Later Journey to the West. Other reports said viewers found the characters soulless, and one summary of audience comments cited slow pacing and uneven image clarity, which Mango TV's chief technology officer attributed to viewer feedback and promised to address. Ratings figures belong to the broadcaster or a data vendor and measure different things: Yicai reported, citing the data firm Huan Big Data, an average premiere-night rating of 0.27 percent and a peak of 0.33 percent. After the October 14 premiere of Liao Bu Qi A Peng You, Phoenix Entertainment reported that viewers discussed the characters' refusal to quit, and that some did not realise the cast was AI until the first episode ended. Reports on the artists' debut split between supporters, who cited realism and no scandal risk, and critics, who said virtual actors lack real emotion and could reduce work for human performers.

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English-language viewers have mostly met AI drama on YouTube rather than on the platforms above. A thread on Reddit's r/CDrama titled "I'm so tired of AI Chinese mini-dramas on YouTube", posted on October 15, drew dozens of comments. One commenter wrote: "The mini drama actors are saying that their workload dropped off a cliff." Another said of their own habits: "The moment I see it’s AI, I’m noping out of there." A third offered a view on Chinese audiences in general: "Essentially, the Chinese are quite receptive to AI works as long as it's done well."

What people in the industry say

Actors and producers have raised likeness and authorisation questions. In April, after iQIYI unveiled an AI Artist Library that it said had more than 100 artists on board, the studios of several actors, Zhang Ruoyun (张若昀) among them, said they had signed no AI-related authorisation, according to the technology site TechNode. iQIYI replied that the library was matchmaking infrastructure for AIGC creators, with participation, scope and pay to be negotiated case by case.

On the production side, Mango TV's Wang Xinying (王心莹), deputy general manager of its AIGC centre, told Chinese media that AI drama still struggles with continuity, mismatched styles and consistent performance across shots, and that no single model solves all of them.

The market for ordinary people's faces has also drawn attention. Sixth Tone reported on October 15 that users of face-licensing platforms such as NCAIGC, Mirafans and ActID mostly receive few or no requests. It said the platforms take about 30 percent, that ordinary users can expect about 100 yuan per short video and that professional actors may earn up to 10,000 yuan. A film and television AI production head surnamed Zheng told CCTV that companies mainly seek celebrity and short-drama influencer likenesses. The same report notes that Beijing's market regulator warned on October 8 that criminals may scrape selfies, videos and voices from social media to generate AI avatars without permission.