To pay or not to pay? (2)

No easy transition

China's online video audience now numbers 450 million, which is more than 70 percent of the nation's total number of Internet users, said Luo Jianhui, director of the department for online video and audio management at the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), while delivering a speech at a forum in Shanghai on December 6.

This compares to a total of 325 million online video users at the end of 2011, which was over 63 percent of the country's total Internet users by then, according to SARFT.

The total ad sales revenue for domestic online video firms is expected to exceed 9 billion yuan this year, according to Luo, who said online video has already gained the crown as the most popular Internet service in the country in terms of time spent using it, ahead of social networking sites.

However, the firms have been hoping for some time to diversify their revenue streams, instead of just relying on advertising, leading them to develop fee-paying services. Unfortunately, mass acceptance of the idea still seems some way off, industry insiders said.

"Paid services offered by tv.sohu.com include most of the latest domestic movies and foreign movies imported over the past 12 months, but given the fact that China's paid content market remains in its infancy, the number of users who opt for paid content is far smaller than those (who watch videos) free of charge," tv.sohu.com said in a statement sent to the Global Times. The company started offering paid content at the end of 2010.