3 November 2014: 68% of mainland viewers involved in an online entertainment format would give up sex rather than their internet connection. How does mainland Chinese online platform Tencent know this? Via its local version of entertainment format Are You Normal?.The All3Media International/ Zoo Productions format, which Tencent has just renewed for a second season, debuted on the platform in April this year. Season two is scheduled to debut in the first half of 2015. The Chinese version’s first season has recorded more than 330 million views and attracted 114 million unique views so far. Tencent said this was a record for a videoon-demand show in China.Benny Luo, Tencent's deputy creative director, video, describes Are You Normal? as "the perfect choice" for Tencent. The game show polls viewers on various behaviours and then asks them whether they think this is normal or not.Luo says the use of social media plays to Tencent's WeChat and QQ social networking strengths. New shows involve not only voting but interaction with contestants. "Social media plays a very important role... teenagers nowadays, especially those who spend most of their time on new media, are very aggressive and are eager to be part of the game. They want to express their thinking and want people to agree with them," he says."With WeChat and QQ, our survey easily reaches millions of Chinese... the show is funny and people discuss the right answers and the results. The effect of the show goes back to social media, that’s brilliant!," he says."Teenagers nowadays are very aggressive and are eager to be part of the game. They want to express their thinking and want people to agree with them." Benny Luo, Deputy Creative Director, Video, Tencent ChinaThe added benefit is the big data collected from participants, including age, gender and where they live. Luo says Are You Normal? also ticks the video content box for Tencent and its quest to differentiate the platform from rivals across the media landscape, including traditional broadcasters. "Tencent Video should put more video content with a 'social media' gene on screen to differentiate it from other internet video sites such as Youku and iQIYI and the traditional broadcasters such as Hunan TV and Zhejiang TV," Luo says.Tencent's technical team integrated Are You Normal? into WeChat with a plugin app. After that, consumers were encouraged to join the survey and to recommend participation to their friends in exchange for small gifts. "Once a person answered all the 10 questions in a topic such as 'relationship' and 'everyday behaviour', their answers were scored and they could share their scores with others and they could continue to another topic if they wanted to," Luo says.The main adaptation for the Chinese series is versioning the questions. Luo says 30% to 40% of the original questions in season one could be used for China, and the rest had to be created using the existing list as a guide. The China version also pairs up a celebrity and a 'regular' person instead of teams of two ordinary people.Luo adds that season two will be similar to season one with a set and visual identity that is "even younger, fresher and cooler". The basic rules of the game and the use of Tencent’s social chat platform WeChat will remain the same. In addition, "we will keep using celebrities because young audiences are eager to know the ‘secret habits' of their idols," Luo says. Live "telecasts" are also an option, although Luo says the commercial case for 'live' has not yet been made.Are You Normal? is part of a rising generation of survey-based programming, driven by technology and interactivity and maximising the use of social media. Does Luo think this is a start of something much bigger and longer running? “Absolutely”. And it’s by no means the end of the platform’s plans. A key content priority for 2015 is producing local versions of additional formats as well as co-developing new formats with international partners. The idea is to combine acquisitions with original content and, of course, to stay within new regulations that cap foreign acquired content on online platforms.The biggest original production challenge going forward is to balance “the artist versus the technologist”. Luo says China is awash with producers shifting from jobs with linear television stations into over-the-top platforms. “The challenge is they may not necessarily be concerned about profit but care more for their idea. But most of the OTT platforms are concerned about whether the idea is making money,” he says, adding: “It takes time for producers to digest the new ways of workingwith OTT platforms”.