Although the downloading process is extremely time-consuming, the bank employee who lives in Shanghai told China Daily she will keep doing it because she doesn't want to watch "cliched domestic productions and South Korean plays". The industry is wondering how long US shows will be off-limits.

"Policies mandating prior review of online content were issued a long time ago, but they haven't been strictly followed up to now," said Peng Kan, research and development director with consultancy Legend Media.

"Once the shows go through a review by the administration, there's a good chance that they'll be back online again," said Peng, adding that the authority seemingly selected four shows randomly as a "warning shot' to the sites.

Zombie-themed horror drama The Walking Dead is still available on major sites, and a paid channel operated by national broadcaster China Central Television is airing a Chinese-dubbed version of Game of Thrones, HBO's fantasy drama that contains many nude scenes.

CCTV is also preparing to air the dubbed version of The Big Bang Theory, according to CBMMedia, a third-party TV program production company. China Daily couldn't directly confirm that report.

Another reason why banning US dramas won't hurt video sites much is that the US shows have a rather small number of page views compared with local and South Korean dramas.

Sohu's weekly top 10 list of most-viewed series usually includes seven or eight domestic ones. The rest are from South Korea.

The most recent exception was Season 2 of House of Cards. The political satire climbed to fifth place only three days after its debut on the Chinese platform earlier this year.

In February, there were three series (two domestic, the other from South Korea) that had a monthly online viewer number exceeding 80 million.

The Walking Dead, the most viewed US program, generated less than 8 million views during the same period, data from iResearch show.

Removing the four shows off the sites was not a "fatal injury" for the companies because most of them have about 70 US shows available online, according to Xu.

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