Kuaishou partners with CMG for Spring Festival Gala

China's short-video platform Kuaishou has become China Media Group's exclusive interactive partner at the Spring Festival Gala 2020, CCTV reported on Thursday.

Kuaishou will share a record high of 1 billion yuan ($142.9 million) worth of red envelopes in cooperation with CMG at this year's Spring Festival Gala, a program celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year.

As the most-watched annual show on Chinese New Year's Eve, the Spring Festival Gala has a new tradition of snatching red envelopes in digital form these years with the rapid development of high technology.

The tradition of older generations giving cash in red envelopes or hongbao to children during the Spring Festival is a way for Chinese people to express their best wishes and good luck. In some parts of South China, unmarried people can also get red envelopes during the holiday.

Technological development has expanded the scope and made it a wider greeting practice to deliver goodwill to families, friends and sometimes even colleagues.

In this year's Spring Festival, audiences can use video interactive technology to snatch red envelopes under the theme of "Thumbs-up for Chinese Year" during not only Chinese New Year's Eve but also the whole period of the Spring Festival celebration.

The new way to get this year's red envelopes is to watch a video and give it a thumbs-up for the happiness, diversity, truth, kindness and vitality of China and Chinese people's lives, which is different from the traditional approach of looking at images and texts.

The interactive activity of snatching red envelopes will last for a month and the public can learn about the rules for the sharing of this year's red envelopes starting from Jan 17 via Kuaishou, the report said.

Founded in 2011, Kuaishou, which boasts more than 200 million daily active users, allows people to upload short videos of 10 seconds to a few minutes each, with diversified content ranging from cooking to physical exercise, dancing and family gatherings.

China's short-video industry saw explosive 745 percent year-on-year growth to 46.7 billion yuan ($6.8 billion) in revenue last year, according to a report released on May 27 by the China Netcasting Services Association, an industry group.