Television Adaptation in the Age of Media Convergence: Chinese Intellectual Property Shows and the Case of All Is Well

This article formally introduces the ‘intellectual property show’ concept currently inciting heated discussions among Chinese media studies scholars into English-language academia. Intellectual property show, a Chinese term generally referring to television shows adapted from internet fiction (and to a secondary extent, video games), explicitly suggests an adaptation form and logic particular to an environment characterized by converging media and digital transformations of cultural production. Using the 2019 Chinese hit show All is Well, adapted from an internet novel with the same name, I approach intellectual property show as a media artefact situated at the volatile convergence of political demand, business interest, and new media affordances through adopting an integrative approach to contemporary adaptations in China. By attending to both the material context of production and the media text itself, I join the current explorations in adaptation studies for methods that answer the why and how of adaptation.