Illustration: Liu Xiangya/GT

"Audiences no longer blindly believe in big-budget productions or big names. A business model that depends solely on celebrity power is unsustainable," Feng Shengyong, head of the television drama department at the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), said at a recent industry conference in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province.

His words cut to the heart of a dilemma that has plagued Chinese television for the better part of a decade.

During this time, the formula of "a top-tier big star and popular IP" was regarded as the key to wealth in the film and television industry, but this reasoning is now collapsing. 

In the past two years, many dramas starring big-name celebrities have suffered from disastrous ratings, with their Douban scores falling below the passing line, forming a sharp contrast with their high production and marketing costs. 

Amid the impact of diverse entertainment forms such as short videos, the core competitiveness of long-form dramas has become irreplaceable narrative depth and emotional richness rather than celebrity gimmicks.

Zhu Xinmei, director of the Institute of International Communication at the Development Research Center of the NRTA, told the Global Times on Monday that the vigorous development of short videos, or micro-short dramas, a segmented industry supported purely by stories rather than popular stars or big productions, fully demonstrates the collapse of the "popular star myth."

"Actors who artificially create online traffic on social media but lack real ability will be eliminated by the market more quickly," she added.

In addition, the serious homogenization of current long-form dramas stems largely from platforms' "algorithm anxiety." 

Historical dramas pile onto the same "romance plus power struggles" template; modern series recycle the same CEO-and-sweetheart dynamics; mystery dramas chase twist after twist until audiences are exhausted by predictability. 

The result is that when a certain genre becomes popular, everyone rushes to follow; when a certain character set succeeds, all scripts lean in that direction. This "speculative creation" deprives creators of their imagination and ignores the diversity of audience aesthetics.

"Under this market logic, a writer's originality is often sacrificed for commercially calculated data metrics. Naturally, good stories become scarce," Shi Wenxue, a Beijing-based industry observer, told the Global Times.

He added that platforms rely on user portraits and click data to reverse-engineer creations, but they fail to realize that audiences themselves often cannot predict what they will love. A truly good work creates demand rather than catering to it. 

The success of works such as Three-Body and The Long Season have proven that content that dares to break conventions and not blindly follow data can instead gain a greater market response.

Beyond abandoning traffic and algorithm worship, regulating one's behavior and upholding both moral integrity and artistic excellence are the foundation of an actor's career and a red line in the industry. 

At the conference, Feng also raised concerns about the inappropriate behaviors of actors, including bringing luxury caravans to film sets, a large entourage of assistants, online fan conflicts triggered by disputes over billing order.

When actors put themselves on a pedestal, they lose the ability to observe, experience and become ordinary people. Yet the classic roles remembered by audiences are often born from actors' immersion in life. 

Feng sent a sincere message to actors at the conference: "Actors should aspire to leave good works, not to make big money. If you always want to make a quick buck while being famous and popular, your realm will drop, and after a short period of glitz, you will face endless loss and pain." 

In an era of capital hustle and the pursuit of online traffic, "making a quick buck while the iron is hot" seems to have become an unspoken rule of the industry. 

But history has repeatedly proven that only those actors who regard creation as a belief and audiences as bosom friends can stand the test of time and leave truly memorable works. 

Salary figures and the number of hot searches will fade away, but good works speak for themselves. As Zhu said, when more actors and production teams aspire to "leave good works" that can strike a chord with audience's values and offer something meaningful in return can Chinese dramas truly win respect.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. life@globaltimes.com.cn