The Mystery: Two Names, a Single Suspect
If you enter “short tv” into an app store, you see a crowd of lookalikes, a Chinese studio’s press history and, somewhere in the middle, a hit app going by the name ShortMax. Untangling that tangle is the whole case this file sets out to crack. In simple terms, the working theory is that the ShortTV brand a Chinese producer announced for the US, Canada and Australia and the app currently sold as ShortMax are one and the same. That theory is strong, but it is not proven, because no official rename announcement has surfaced. That is why we will walk through the public records one clue at Supernatural Romance reel shorts a time instead of taking anyone’s word for it. On its own, each clue is small; the strength comes from how neatly they fit together. More usefully, by the end you should be able to steer clear of installing the wrong short tv drama app, as well as judge the claim yourself.
The First Clue: The Package Name on Android
The package name is a fixed internal ID carried by every Android app, and it rarely changes even when the storefront title does. In Google Play, ShortMax’s listing uses the package live.shorttv.apps. For a brand named ShortMax, that is an strange choice, unless the app started life under another name. At the very beginning, before marketing settles on a final title, developers typically pick the package ID. The kind of fingerprint that survives a rebrand is therefore a package that spells out “shorttv”. Taken alone, however, a package name only suggests a history; it does not document one. Anyone can check this clue in seconds: the ID also shows up in the web address of the Play listing.
Second Clue: The Entity on Record
Buried in the fine print of both app stores sits the second clue. The App Store names SHORTTV LIMITED as ShortMax’s seller. While Google Play shows the developer as SHORTMAX LIMITED, the legal entity behind it is again SHORTTV LIMITED, with an address in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong. Its terms of service are governed as well by Hong Kong law. Across app publishing, it is a familiar pattern for a studio to rename its consumer product while keeping the original company name. This puts ShortTV’s name on the contract you accept when you pay for ShortMax, even though it does not prove the brands are the same.
Third Clue: When It Launched
The third thread is timing. The Baidu encyclopedia entry dates ShortTV’s launch to September 2023. Google Play gives September 3, 2023 and the App Store lists September 11, 2023 for ShortMax, which appeared in the same month. The overlap is explained more simply by a single product that launched once and later operated under a new name. If two unrelated brands with near-identical names to debut within the same few weeks, that would be a striking coincidence. As late as January 2024, a few months after that launch, China Daily was still referring to Jiuzhou’s English-market app as ShortTV. That said, a shared month is circumstantial, which is why it matters mainly in combination with the other clues.
Fourth Clue: The Web Domain Redirect
Of all the clues, the fourth is the easiest to check, because it happens in your browser. As of September 2026, anyone who opens shortmax.com is sent to shorttv.live through a permanent 301 redirect. The destination site offers web browsing of the same dramas the app streams. The redirect ties both names to one operator, because companies normally point a domain only at property they control. A permanent redirect is a deliberate server setting, not an accident of search results. Even though nobody has written it down in a press release, this is the closest thing in this file to a signed statement.
Fifth Clue: The Copyright Line
The final piece of evidence is a footer. As a rule, copyright notices tend to name the entity that actually owns the content and the site. The line “© 2024 SHORTTV LIMITED” appears on a ShortMax page of the shorttv.live site. Combined with the package name, the seller, the launch month and the redirect, the pattern is hard to read any other way. Still, careful readers should treat the rename as likely but unconfirmed. The company might describe its brands differently in the future, and no official announcement of a switch from ShortTV to ShortMax could be found.
Who Runs It: Jiuzhou Culture
Standing behind the ShortTV name is Jiuzhou Culture, a Chinese short-drama producer. A January 2024 report in China Daily said that Jiuzhou had launched two overseas apps: 99TV for Southeast Asia and ShortTV for the US, Canada and Australia. Over 600 mini-dramas for overseas markets had been produced by Jiuzhou, the same report said. About 80% of them were dubbed adaptations of Chinese productions, while the remaining 20% were original overseas shoots. According to the company’s figures, the cost of a 70-episode short series came to $100,000 to $150,000. That mix explains why the catalog holds both dubbed Chinese stories and locally shot originals. Now, ShortMax’s own listing claims more than 50,000 dramas in 19 languages, a company figure not independently audited. Treat those numbers as a snapshot rather than a current tally, since they date from early 2024. The ownership trail running through SHORTTV LIMITED is what connects this studio to the ShortMax brand you see in stores today.
The Look-Alike Apps Problem
At this point the case gets messier, because the short tv name is not protected in app store search. Apps with nearly identical titles come from several unrelated developers, and none of them is connected to Jiuzhou or ShortMax. One of these can easily get installed instead by anyone looking for a shorts app from the ShortTV team. Only the developer field, which most people never read, shows the differences. The table lists the developer names recorded in the store listings as of September 2026. Do not treat the icon or title as the real ID; treat the developer name as the real ID.
| App name in store | Developer or seller name | Platform | Install count | Connection to Jiuzhou’s ShortTV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ShortMax (package live.shorttv.apps) | SHORTTV LIMITED, Hong Kong | Both iOS and Android | 100M+ via Google Play | Likely the same app; rename unconfirmed |
| ShortTV: Watch Drama Shorts | HUNG LAM INVESTMENT AND CONSTRUCTION JSC | Android | 1M+ | No connection |
| Short TV – Drama & Shorts | BullFX | Android | Not shown | No connection |
| Shortv | Instant Shadow Limited | iOS | Not shown | Unrelated |
The Price of It
Because ShortTV and ShortMax appear to be one product, pricing follows the ShortMax listing. In the US App Store as of September 2026, the Weekly Pass Pro costs about $19.99 a week, with a cheaper tier at about $9.99. It was not possible to verify monthly or yearly plans, since the US store shows only weekly passes. Prices vary by country, platform and promotion, and one-time purchases range from about $3.49 to $24.99. Under the terms, passes are renewed automatically 24 hours before they expire, and refunds are refused unless the service is unusable because of ShortMax. The developer’s own replies on Google Play admit that its “free trial” wording confused some users. Reviewers on the App Store also complain about episodes costing up to 60 coins without clear pricing up front. Cancelling is done in the App Store or Google Play subscription settings, since deleting the app does not stop the billing.
Before You Tap Install: A Quick Checklist
The majority of mix-ups are prevented by a few checks taking less than a minute. Making sure you are getting the Jiuzhou-linked app and not a look-alike is the whole point. Before you start a short series you cannot afford to finish, it also helps you spot the pricing traps. None of these steps requires special tools, only the store page itself. Any site that offers modded versions or “unlimited coins” are best avoided, because those are unofficial and risky. This list is worth running through before you tap install.
- Make sure that the developer or seller reads SHORTTV LIMITED or SHORTMAX LIMITED.
- Verify that the install count on Google Play sits at 100M+.
- Open the in-app purchase list to see current weekly pass prices in your country.
- Keep in mind that passes renew automatically until you cancel in your store settings.
- Avoid any app whose developer name matches none of the above, however similar the title.