China’s newly introduced regulation on television drama cast credits has sparked fresh debate after many viewers argued that its implementation has created new confusion instead of solving long-standing billing disputes.
The new guideline, jointly issued by three major television industry associations, requires actors’ names to appear in the format “legal name (stage name)”.
Within the same billing category, names must also be arranged according to the official stroke order of their legal surnames.
Although the regulation officially takes effect on July 10, several production companies and streaming platforms have already adopted the rule in promotional materials.
The policy was originally introduced to address the long-running problem of billing disputes, which have frequently led to conflicts between actors, agencies, and fan communities.
In some cases, disagreements over cast ranking even disrupted production schedules and promotional campaigns.
However, critics argue that some production teams have misunderstood the regulation.
Instead of separating actors by billing categories, they have simply arranged every cast member according to surname stroke order.
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