China – Episodes of the newest season of BBC’s Sherlock has begun airing on China’s video streaming site Youku Tudou just hours after Britain’s BBC airing, making it the first outside of Britain, according to the South China Morning Post.

The officially-subtitled first episode of the show’s third season was made available for free streaming on Youku Tudou. Sherlock, a modern day re-imagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s popular Sherlock Holmes character, is a popular favourite amongst the Chinese. 

Youku Tudou ensures the acquirement of licences for overseas television programmes to help meet Chinese demand for high-quality versions of popular shows while combating widespread internet piracy, where bootleg recordings can appear online, hours after originals are broadcast.

Xiangyang, ZHU, Youku Tudou’s chief content executive says,”BBC will directly provide us with official Chinese language subtitles…which is a first for a British drama released over Youku Tudou. After a review process where the site’s internal team confirms that there are no problems with the video or the subtitles, the episode can immediately be released, and the whole process takes about four hours only.”

Zhu added that while synchronised broadcasts of American television programmes on Chinese websites had occurred in the past, most notably in 2010 for the two series Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy, such a phenomenon was rare for British dramas, thanks to slow and unpredictable production schedules.

“We wanted to push this concept of synchronised broadcast for British dramas,” Zhu said, explaining that Youku Tudou had negotiated deals with the BBC for Sherlock since 2012. “We have introduced a lot of American television programmes successfully to China. We want British dramas to have the same opportunity.”  

The show will not air until mid-January in most other regions.