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YouTube carries the most titles in our five-country Chinese drama sample

7 October 2026

Among the 81 titles we track, we found more on licensed YouTube channels than on any other service in each of five countries. Most of those YouTube listings are free in full. Checks of paid services outside the US remain incomplete.

Many titles in our US sample are available both on paid services and on free official YouTube channels.

Viki carries 36 of the titles we track in the US. Twenty-six of them are also on a licensed YouTube channel, free, in full. For Netflix it is 10 of 14. For WeTV, 15 of 22. For iQIYI, 18 of 25.

These are official channels operated under the names of the platforms and studios behind the shows.

The count

Forty Episodes tracks 81 Chinese dramas and variety shows and records where each can be watched legally. Every route is opened from inside the country it is listed for. Checks have been conducted in five countries: the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam and Mexico.

Coverage limits: These are selected titles, not a market-wide sample. Vietnam has 18 titles still to check; Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico have four each. Outside the US, checks reopen known listings and search YouTube for local channels, but do not yet systematically search each paid service for additional titles. This may favour YouTube in the comparison.

YouTube is first in all five. In the US, 52 of its 56 are free in full; three sit behind a channel membership and one is free in part.

What is on those channels

The channels publish full series with subtitles. On the US routes the median title carries ten subtitle languages; 29 of 56 carry ten or more. English is on 54 of 56.

Of the 56 US titles, about 35 sit on a channel that carries the name of one of the four platforms (iQIYI, Tencent, Youku, Mango) and about 15 on a studio’s or distributor’s own, among them Huace and its Croton label, Daylight Entertainment, Huanyu Media and Senyu Media. Six are on channels our data does not name.

Many titles appear on multiple services

Of the 78 titles with any US route, 60 are on two or more services and 35 on three or more. The same holds in Mexico (53 and 26 of 72) and Brazil (49 and 16 of 74).

We have read no contracts. On what plays, a Western service carrying one of these titles shares it with the owner’s own free release. What it adds is placement, a dub, or a subtitle language the owner did not make.

They are going direct in Spanish

In Mexico we found five Spanish-language channels, under the names of WeTV, Huace Croton, Mango TV, Youku and China Zone, carrying full series with Spanish subtitles or a Spanish dub. One sells a channel membership at MX$219 a month. Mexico has the highest YouTube count of the five for that reason.

The channels carry the rights holders’ own names. We have not checked whether a local agency runs any of them under contract.

Netflix is a small part of it

Fourteen of 81 in the United States. At least eight in Mexico. Netflix has not yet been read from Brazil, Indonesia or Vietnam, so those counts remain unconfirmed.

What we do not know

What the YouTube channels earn. Whether a given upload came before or after the title was licensed elsewhere. What any license says about exclusivity: we see only what plays, not what was signed. And whether the free upload is the whole run everywhere: we check it per country, and it is not always.

Method

A route counts only if a person opened it from inside that country and it played, or was posted and locked behind a stated membership. The 81 are the titles this site tracks, not every Chinese drama, so these are counts, not market share. Vietnam has 18 titles still to check; Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico have four each.

Outside the United States, a pass re-opens every known route and searches YouTube for local channels, but does not yet search each paid service for titles it carries only there. The comparison may therefore favour YouTube.

The full method is published: Research Methodology.

Eden · Forty Episodes · figures as of 7 October 2026