《纸牌屋》在中国真的有那么红吗？

    早在《纸牌屋》(House of Cards)第二季登陆中国之前，这部美剧就获得了一波好莱坞制片人做梦都不敢想的免费宣传。

    香港某周刊报道称，中共中央政治局七大常委之一、中纪委书记王岐山非常喜欢看这部由奈飞公司(Netflix)制作的剧集。担任美国众议院多数党党鞭的主人公在确保党的纪律性方面发挥的作用给这位铁腕反腐的政府官员留下了尤为深刻的印象。

    这段轶事在新浪微博、微信等中国社交网络犹如野火一般迅速蔓延开来。《纸牌屋》终于在两个月后登陆中国第三大视频内容网站搜狐网(Sohu.com)【相较于优酷(Youku)和百度(Baidu)旗下的视频网站，生机勃勃的搜狐视频目前尚处于弱势地位】的时候，美国媒体纷纷报道称，这部剧集在中国大获成功，引发轰动效应，中国观众尤其喜欢该剧极具现实感的故事情节——一位中国亿万富豪逃离腐败指控，最终导致中美两国爆发外交争端。

    但媒体炒作和人气终究不是一回事。尽管《纸牌屋》在中国备受好评，但收视数字显示，它并不是一部万人空巷、人人追看的超级剧集。《纸牌屋》就像布鲁克林区制作的手工奶酪：有影响力的人士都爱吃，但这并没有让它成为风靡全美的美味佳肴。

    根据搜狐提供的数字，《纸牌屋》第二季目前累计获得了2,900万的点击量，每一集的点击量大约为220万次。对于一部观众很难跟上情节主线（哪怕你了解美国参议院的议事程序）的外国电视剧来说，这样的收视成绩相当不错。但说它是一部收视爆红的神剧就很牵强了。《乡村爱情7》，一部讲述中国东北地区农村生活的喜剧，在搜狐视频上获得了3.6亿次的点击量，每一集的点击量大约为600万次。

    “这些数字并不支持《纸牌屋》的收视率超高这种论断，”常驻北京的咨询师金玉米这样说道。金玉米一直为他的公司单位网(Danwei)追踪中国传媒动态，他本人最近也如痴如醉地看完了《纸牌屋》最新一季。然而，他说，这部美剧“深受有影响力的受众欢迎，比如说都市白领、知识分子、记者，显然还包括政府官员。”

    美国也出现了类似的情形。《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)网站给《纸牌屋》是一部传统的热播剧集这种说法泼了一瓢冷水。作者德里克•汤普森点出了问题的要害：

    “有些电视节目专门用来取悦少数文化程度高的观众，它们能得到到少数文化程度高、无视别人收视喜好的电视评论人的喝彩，这种现象其实并不是什么巧合。”

    与美国一样，绝大多数中国观众正在收看那些容易跟上故事情节的剧集。由于中国政府不允许发布电影和电视剧收视率前10名榜单（部分目的是为了阻止制作公司无休止地模仿最受欢迎的节目，而不是潜心创作新节目），局外人很难追踪中国的热播影视动态。尽管如此，我们依然可以从搜狐视频发布的流媒体内容收视榜单中看出一些端倪。排名前7位的电视剧分别是：《屌丝男士》、《乡村爱情》、《大丈夫》、《隋唐英雄》、《封神英雄榜》、《新闺蜜时代》和《父母爱情》。

    这些剧集吸引的观众数量数倍于《纸牌屋》的粉丝，但并没有受到西方媒体关注。金玉米说，CBS（哥伦比亚广播公司）的剧集《生活大爆炸》(Big Bang Theory)与《纸牌屋》具有一定的可比性。两者都是在中国很方便收看的美剧。与《纸牌屋》不同，《生活大爆炸》并没有因为它在中国备受欢迎而受到媒体连篇累牍的报道。但《生活大爆炸》显然更受青睐——根据搜狐的数据，这部剧集单是最新一季就斩获了1.15亿次的点击量，每一集的点击量大约为700万次。

    我的大部分中国朋友都曾经向我提起过《生活大爆炸》；我还没有跟他们讨论过《纸牌屋》。但在媒体上，你几乎看不到这一点。金玉米说：“《生活大爆炸》似乎没有获得同等的关注。”

    电视评论人往往把一部剧集在北京和上海的人气等同于它在整个中国的受欢迎程度。这是一个很容易犯的错误。北京和上海是中国内地最大、最富裕的城市，拥有许多《纸牌屋》粉丝，但这两座城市的居民人数仅占中国全国总人口的3%。电视评论人这样做，其实就相当于用纽约市和半个芝加哥来描绘整个美国。

    不过，不能说《纸牌屋》并没有激起中国观众的收看热情。仅仅几年前，我们还难以想象一部在美国网络独播、以华府政治斗争为主题的情节剧竟然能够在中国同步播出，而且还能受到数百万观众的垂青。但在中国这样一个拥有13亿消费者的国家，感觉和现实往往是两码事。（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    Before House of Cards' second season arrived for streaming in China, the show got the type of free publicity that Hollywood producers can only dream of.

    A Hong Kong magazine reported that China's anti-corruption tsar, a member of China's powerful seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, was a big fan of the Netflix (NFLX) drama. The tsar was particularly impressed with the main character's role in ensuring party discipline as Majority Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives.

    The story spread like wildfire across China's social networks Sina Weibo, WeChat, and others. When the show finally became available two months later on Sohu.com, China's third-largest video content site and a scrappy underdog to Youku and Baidu's video site, stories in the U.S. press labeled it a huge hit and immensely popular with the Chinese, especially the realistic storyline involving a Sino billionaire fleeing corruption charges and growing diplomatic tensions between China and Japan.

    But media hype and popularity are different beasts, and for all the goodwill House of Cards gets in China, viewership numbers don't tell the story of a mega-hit. The show is like artisanal cheese made in Brooklyn -- the influential love it, but that doesn't make it a phenomenon across the U.S.

    According to Sohu's figures, House of Cards' second season has 29 million views, which works out to 2.2 million views per episode. For a foreign show with plotlines that are difficult to follow even if you know U.S. Senate procedures, that's impressive. But a hit? Country Love, a comedy about rural life in China's northeast, recorded 360 million views in its latest season on Sohu, roughly 6 million per episode.

    "The numbers don't support the argument that House of Cards is super important," says Jeremy Goldkorn, a consultant in Beijing who tracks Chinese media for his firm Danwei and recently binge watched House of Cards' new season. He says the show is, however, "popular amongst a demographic that is influential and significant -- urban white collars, intellectuals, journalists, and apparently government officials."

    In the U.S., a similar pattern has emerged. The Atlantic's website threw cold water on the idea ofHouse of Cards being a conventional TV hit. The writer, Derek Thompson, has it right:

    "It's no coincidence that the programs selected to please a small, educated audiences are celebrated by the small, educated TV writers who ignore what everybody else is watching."

    In China, what everybody else is watching is the same kind of easy-to-follow fare that works in the U.S. Although tracking what's popular here can be tough because China's government doesn't allow top 10 lists of movies and television, partly to discourage producers from endlessly copying the most popular shows in lieu of creating new ones, Sohu does release a list of its most popular streaming content. Its top seven TV shows: Diors Man, Village Love, Real Man, Heros of Sui, andTang Dynasties, The Heroes, The Ladybros, Love of Parents.

    All those generate many multiples more viewers than House of Cards, but get little press in the West. Goldkorn says CBS's Big Bang Theory is the show to compare to House of Cards in China. Both are foreign and widely available. Unlike House of Cards, Big Bang doesn't get loads of press for its popularity in China. But Big Bang is easily more popular -- the latest season alone recorded 115 million views, according to Sohu, or 7 million per episode.

    Most of my Chinese friends have at some point mentioned Big Bang to me; I haven't yet talked about House of Cards. But in the press, you rarely read this. "Big Bang doesn't seem to push the same buttons," says Goldkorn.

    Writers often equate popularity in Beijing and Shanghai, China's biggest cities and where manyHouse of Cards viewers live, for popularity in China. It's an easy error to make. They are the Mainland's richest cities, but their populations amount to just 3% of the country as a whole. That's the equivalent of using New York City and half of Chicago to describe America.

    You can't say House of Cards hasn't piqued interest in the Middle Kingdom. The prospect of a Washington political drama, distributed exclusively online in the U.S., being released simultaneously in China, and gaining millions of viewers in the process, was unfathomable a few years ago. But in China, perception and reality are often different in a country of 1.3 billion consumers.