Sorry, Agent Carter fans in China: due to a recent string of new regulations against important television shows in the country, you’re going to have to pirate ABC and Marvel’s latest spy thriller if you want to see it.
According to popular pop culture outlet Mtime, both Agent Carter and Fox drama Empire have both been ordered off of all Chinese video sites by the State General Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), who regulate all media in the country. This keeps in line with recently heightened regulations that require all foreign television shows to be kept off their air until the SARFT can approve them on a season-by-season basis, using guidelines that forbid all kinds of content but most notably sexual activity between anyone who isn’t in a heterosexual marriage. Well, at least Jarvis and his wife might be free and clear, right?
These stricter regulations first surfaced in June 2014, most like as a reaction to the amount of Chinese technology companies who’ve been working on ways to bring the typically less censorable Internet to TV screens. As a result, video content, apps, and even TV hardware must be submitted to the SARFT for approval before they can make it onto the market.
Now the first seasons of both series must be approved in their entirety by censors, meaning that Chinese video sites will no longer be able to keep up with the U.S. broadcast window for Agent Carter or Empire. But that doesn’t mean no one in China will be able to see Peggy kicking butt ever again—it just means the rate of piracy for these shows will increase dramatically, because as we all know, you can’t keep something off the Internet no matter how much you regulate it.
(via Variety)
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