VLinkage released a list of dramas with over 10 billion online views. And the current King and Queen of online views.
1.Legend of Chusen/Noble Aspirations with Li Yi Feng, Zhao Li Ying, & Yang Zi: 25.4 billion
2. Legend of MiYue with Sun Li & Liu Tao: 23.9 billion
3. Journey of Flower with Wallace Huo & Zhao Li Ying: 20.9 billion
4. The Princess Weiyoung with Tang Yan & Luo Jin: 18.9 billion
5. Ode to Joy with Liu Tao, Wang Kai, & Jin Dong: 18.3 billion
6. Ice Fantasy with Feng Shao Feng, Song Qian, & Ma Tianyu: 16.4 billion
7. A Smile is Very Alluring/ Love O2O with Yang Yang & Zheng Shuang: 15.8 billion
8. To Be a Better Man with Sun Honglei & Jiang Shu Ying: 14 billion
9. Nirvana in Fire with HuGe, Wang Kai, & Lui Tao: 13.7 billion
10. Empress of China with Fan BingBing & Aarif Rahman: 13.5 billion
11. Sparrow with Li Yi Feng & Zhou Dong Yu: 11.5 billion
12. The Mystic Nine with Willian Chan, Zhang Yixing, & Zhao Liying: 11.3 billion
13. Chinese Hero Zhao Zi Long with Lin GengXin & Im Yoonah : 10.8 billion
14. Legend of Zhen Huan with Sun Li & Jiang Xin: 10.5 billion
15. Sword of Legends with Li Yi Feng & Yang Mi : 10.07 billion
16. My Sunshine with Tang Yan & Wallace Chung: 10.03 billion
Most of these dramas have been released in the last few years. Online viewership has exponentially grown in the last three years and it could overtake broadcast in the next three to five years.
VLinkage also listed Zhao Liying and Li Yi Feng as the actors with the most online views. Li Yi Feng has over 61 billion views and Zhao Liying has over 110 billion views. Zhao Liying breakout in online views occurred in 2013 with Female Prime Minister, while for Li Yi Feng it was Swords of Legends in 2014. Congrats to both of them!
Cnewsdevotee 
I watched all ZLY drama and movie online Maybe Princess Agent surpass the Chusen Ratings. Im not in China. How can my views be counted I watched it on Asian and Dramanice.
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I think if you watch it from official international websites like dramafever, viki, or official yiutube account. And yes Princess Agents did surpass Chusen.
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where do you find online views count. i am watching princess agents. It is power packed awesome drama. Zhanilla rocks. Queen. Drama has everything.
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On Tencent you can see how many views it has https://v.qq.com/x/cover/47xswolfi4iamlx.html
right now it has 1.07 billion views. For a web drama with unknown actors that is really good.
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I’m sorry but how does ratings worked in China? o.o
I recently started venturing out in Cdramaland around 2014 and that started with Boss&Me haha. Is that when ZYL started to earn her rating queen crown or was it Journey of Flowers?
I know how the rating systems in Korea work in the back of my head and lots of blogs covered the bases of K-dramas ratings. There are a lot more information in K-drama entertainment for international viewers so yeah. I mean I know ratings isn’t a good determinant of what is a good drama but sometimes it plays a role in knowing what people like and the popularity of the dramas. I know China is bigger so I guess they’re dependent on the billion views. I know Novaland got at least 1billion views and the actors in there were rising stars. It be cool if someone could explain how the ratings system work and all, thanks.
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It is complicated and I don’t fully understand it myself. China has branched out into online broadcast significantly more than Korea. So in China a drama can be considered a hit due to online views, but have really bad TV ratings. Ideally you want high TV ratings, online buzz, and high online views (more than 10 billion). However, it seems like having online views is more important than having a drama with high tv ratings at least from a buzz perspective. This is probably due to marketing, with buzz online you are targeting a different audience that is more likely to buy certain products, etc. Kind of when in Korea a drama has high TV ratings but no buzz among the public, while other dramas with less Tv ratings create a lot of buzz and popularity.
As for ZLY, she was in popular dramas like Legend of LuZhen and Boss & Me. Those dramas were popular online and had really good TV ratings, however it was Journey of Flower that took her to the next level. JoF did extremely good on everything.
Novaland had some buzz, but it didnt do that good online or with TV ratings. Also, fans did not like the ending so they were dissatisfied. I wouldn’t call it a success, but it wasn’t a flop. In my opinion, this year was kind of a miss for cdramas. A lot of dramas had a lot of buzz, but most of the popular dramas online were not doing good on TV ratings (Chusen, City of Fantasy, Love O2O, etc). Also, overall for me most dramas were not as good.
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I heard that Chusen got over 20 billion viewers, so it was the online viewers only?
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yes Chusen has over 26 billion right now and it had buzz online. The early ratings were really high but overall TV ratings were lackluster. Same with the other ones I mentioned.
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I think chusen become favorite because there are So many goodlooking actors.so no matter the stories goes it still can make you feel fresh watching them..lol.. Boss and me always become my no.1 cdrama..LIYing deserved to have 110 billion viewers because she truly have amazing skill of acting..especially the chemistry between the OTP..
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LYF’s fan base is amazing considering he wasn’t great in Chusen. In fact, I wonder if the popularity of Chusen wasn’t also because of all the other actors as I noticed that they were too highly searched on baidu (Cheng Yi in particular)
I guess it’s true that idol power still sells amongst the younger crowd who would be the ones watching online.
I hope Chusen opens doors for Qin Jun Jie (liked him since Legend of Qin), Mao Zi Jun and Cheng Yi !
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QJJ and MZJ have 2 more dramas together. The new duo lol
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I know QJJ and MZJ are in the Dragon Tear thingy with Yang Zi but which is the other one ?
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haha, your comment made me giggle 😛
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Ugh…Chusen is popular because of the cast. Hope ppl realize that lol
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lol we know ^^ but cast isnt everything since a lot of dramas have popular cast members but don’t get as popular as Chusen. I will admit that somehow Chusen keeps you coming for more. It is like masochism ;;;
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ZLY and LYF are enough for ratings. Haha
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hahaha! So true. started rolling my eyes at it since ep 20 and yet I watched it till the end….
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Wow, I was curious to see the ranking after another year full of dramas. Thanks!!
It is amazing that Zhao Liying always get a new #1 drama every year, no wonder she is ratings queen!
Honestly, even if there are a lot of 2016 dramas on topping the list this year Zhu Xian/Princess Weiyoung/Ode to Joy, etc, I feel like 2016 drama quality really suffered compared to 2015. Journey of Flower and Nirvana in Fire will always be Cdrama classics now, but the ones of 2016 are just very well.. hyped? I dunno if what I am saying makes sense… xD
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I agree. I think Nirvana and Journey of Flower will always be seen as classics. I also consider Boss & Me a romcom cdrama classic, but it is not on the list. I can’t believe Chusen is number one. I get why it is number one because after everything I am still watching, but quality wise it can’t compare to some of the other dramas. I think in the end it could end up with 30 billion views. Chusen had potential but … in the end it is all hype and fans hoping it will get better.
ZLY has over 110 billion views in just three years, which is crazy.
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Boss&Me was released in 2014 so I guess that’s why? I think it is the best one of all the Gu Man novel adaptations :3 so fluffy cute and not too annoyingly perfect, hehe.
Chusen is the proof that a popular cast, high budget and the xianxia tag is enough to become a hit. Which is sad because the end result was disappointing for me.
Yeah! They just finished airing so I am sure the ratings will increase even more in the upcoming year.
(btw, if anyone’s curious, this was last year’s list: https://cdramadevotee.com/ranking-chinese-drama-web-ratings/)
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yeah Boss & Me is my favorite GuMan novel adaptation too. Chusen was pretty disappointing, I was expecting another Journey of Flower.
Thanks for posting the link to last year’s list. Things have changed so much in a year. Now online views are much higher.
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