Youku Recognizes "100 Million Views" Club at Gala Event

BEIJING, December 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Youku Inc. (NYSE: YOKU), China's leading Internet television company, hosted its Youku Index Awards Gala in Beijing tonight to celebrate the stars and television and film titles most popular with Internet viewers this year. The award winners were selected by perhaps the most authoritative panel of judges ever assembled -- Youku's 300 million viewers.

Youku Index, the Company's self-developed media tracking and analysis system, recorded 30 television serial dramas that received more than 100 million views this year, resulting in the "100 Million Views" club comprised of the respected winners. One of these - 'Introduction of the Princess' ("Qing Shi Huangfei", or 'Princess') -- set a record, reaching 100 million views in only eight days. On average, the time period for any new series to reach 100 million views shortened significantly this year as a result of continued growth of Youku's viewer base and of network effects resulting from corporations with popular Chinese social media. Corporations with television stations, under which new series premiere simultaneously online and on-air is another driving factor.

"Youku Index is the most comprehensive system so far for tracking Internet video ratings in China," Youku chief editor Sunny Xiangyang Zhu said in his remarks at the event. "By applying fine-grained analysis to the data generated by our 300 million viewers, Youku Index enables the Company to gain a detailed picture of what Chinese web audiences respond to. When we talk about 'China's leading actress' or 'China's top television serial drama' at tonight's event, we've got a vast ocean of data to back up these nominations."

'Princess' was named the year's most-viewed television serial drama, with 657 million views. Ruby Lin Hsin-ju, the lead actress in the series, was recognized at the Youku Index Awards Gala as Best Producer and Best Actress (Non-Mainland). Liu Xiaoqing, lead actress in the series 'Wu Zetian: The Unknown Story' ("Wu Zetian Mi Shi") was awarded Best Actress (Mainland). Other leading entertainment figures, including Hai Qing from the series 'Dwelling Narrowness' ("Wo Ju"), were also recognized at the star-studded industry event.

Youku launched Youku Index in 2010. The system tracks viewer up-votes and down-votes, video retweets, and off-site embeddings in blog posts and discussion forums, and takes viewer demographic information into account. Taken as a whole, Youku Index provides a multi-dimensional, context-rich record of Internet video programming performance.

About Youku

Youku Inc. is China's leading Internet television company. Our Internet television platform enables users to search, view and share high-quality video content quickly and easily across multiple devices. Youku, which stands for "what's best and what's cool" in Chinese, is the most recognized online video brand in China. Youku's American depositary shares, each representing 18 of our Class A ordinary shares, are traded on NYSE under the symbol "YOKU."