China Publishing Group surpasses Tencent in animation licenses for the first time

China's National Radio and Television Administration published its broadcast licensing report for the third quarter of 2026 on October 29, and there's a shift nobody saw coming: China Publishing Group surpassed Tencent in the number of permits for web animation.

Between July and September, 338 domestic productions were approved: 158 micro-dramas with 5,369 episodes and 180 web animations with 1,731 episodes. It's the first time the agency has separated both categories into independent lists, leaving behind the combined "network dramas" statistic.

On the animation side, the surprise came from 中图新阅读 (Dalian), a company under the state-owned publishing group China Publishing Group. It obtained 23 licenses in a single quarter, more than double the 11 from Shanghai Tencent Penguin Pictures. Until now, this company had never appeared in the listings.

The 23 licenses correspond to a single product: Tudou Dou, an educational children's series focused on science popularization. Each permit covers between 8 and 12 episodes, totaling 234 installments. The series belongs to the "Yiyuan Qingcai" brand and already serves more than 2 million children and families in China, with awards including Youku's annual brand prize.

The move is notable: a state-owned publisher turned nearly a thousand copyrights of existing works into video production in less than three months. Topics range from chemistry to the human body, passing through physics. One of the episodes is titled One slip and I fell into the world of AI, a sign of how artificial intelligence is accelerating production.

Tencent, for its part, added 22 licenses in the quarter, but with a different strategy: it split Douluo Dalu II: Jueshi Tangmen into five independent chapters of three episodes each. An annual series no longer receives a single permit; instead, it's fragmented into units that can be distributed separately.

The new Taihua label and the era of micro-dramas

The report also marks the launch of the Taihua label, the unified identifier for micro-dramas that took effect on September 1 with the sector's new regulations. It's the fourth official label in China's audiovisual industry, after the dragon for film, the Feitian for television, and the one for web audiovisual content.

Of the 158 approved micro-dramas, 91 still use the old nomenclature and 67 have already processed the new permit. The transition is moving faster than expected: almost half the sector completed the change in three months.

The Taihua label appears for three seconds at the start and as a permanent watermark in the upper right corner. It only applies to projects with an investment above 3 million yuan, to micro-dramas using AI with more than 800,000 yuan, or to special themes such as politics, military, ethnicity, religion, justice, or public security.

The first provincial certificates already have owners: in Hunan it went to Yongbu Diaodui (AIGC) from Mango TV; in Beijing, to Shishen 2026; in Shaanxi, to Biandan Yinhang; and in Zhejiang, to Nanhai Yihao.

AI as a production engine

Yongbu Diaodui is the clearest example of where the industry is heading. It's 10 episodes of 7 minutes, the first AIGC micro-drama about the Long March. Everything—characters, settings, images, and music—was generated with artificial intelligence.

The project started in May 2026 with a team of about 20 people and was completed in four months. A traditional war production of the same scope would have required more than a hundred people and at least half a year. It premiered on September 30 and surpassed 64 million views on the platform in eleven days.

Another route is shown by AI Doudou from China Mobile: 6 episodes of 10 minutes produced by Migu, with more than 400 million accumulated views and 42 million complete plays. In October it arrived on iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video, and Migu Video.

The entities applying for licenses are also changing. In Jilin, the company En Artificial Intelligence Technology submitted two micro-dramas of 4 episodes each. It was founded in March 2025 and its shareholders include the Jilin radio and television development group (45%), a state operator from the Jingyue district (33%), and Jishi Media (22%). Its headquarters are in the provincial television building.

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