It's about to become much harder finding favorite U.S. and foreign TV shows on Chinese online video streaming sites.

Beijing issued new rules this week requiring foreign television productions to get a so-called film screening license before airing programming. New regulations also will limit foreign content on Chinese video-streaming sites to 30 percent of their overall content.

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The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television will handle the regulations. Aside from a written statement announcing the new regulations, the agency refused to comment further.

China's leading broadcasting agency told Chinese video-streaming sites they had to register foreign content before being allowed to stream video.  Chinese sites have until next March to comply with the regulations. Content not registered before March will be yanked from the Internet cloud at that time while any new, unregistered foreign content will be prohibited from appearing.

Chinese sites streaming foreign content said new rules wouldn't change much. The state-issued statement said the change would promote Chinese culture and encourage "healthy and upbeat" video programming.

Regulators met with leading online China video-streaming executives just prior to issuing the new requirements.

A spokesman for Youku Tudou Inc., a leading Chinese video-streaming site, said the company didn't see any problems for near-term profitability and visitor traffic. Starting the new policy next year gave the company enough time to adopt and adapt, he said.

Likewise, iQiyi, the video service for Internet search leader Baidu, said the company would comply with the new policy. The new regulations were "a good thing for the industry," they added.

The move comes in conjunction with other new rules pertaining to circulating information on the Internet within China. Recent regulations have been implemented tightening the information online flow in-country.

Another reason for the new video rules, analysts said, was the desire to build a new Chinese video culture with national values rather than relying on foreign productions to define cultural norms.

TagsChina TV, Streaming Video, TV, online video, Youku Tudou, China Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, iQiyi, china video, U.S. TV