The Mystery: Two Names, a Single Suspect
Enter “short tv” into an app store and you find a swarm of lookalikes, the press history of a Chinese studio and, somewhere in the middle, a hit app called ShortMax. The puzzle this file sets out to untangle is that tangle. Put simply, the working theory holds that the ShortTV brand announced by a Chinese producer for the US, Canada and Australia and reelshort the app currently sold as ShortMax are one and the same. Although the theory is strong, it is not proven, since no official rename announcement has surfaced. So rather than taking anyone’s word for it, we will go through the public records one clue at a time. Each clue is small on its own, and the weight comes from how neatly they line up. By the end of this file you should be able to judge the claim yourself and, more usefully, avoid installing the wrong short tv drama app.
Clue One: The Android Package Name
Every Android app has a package name: a fixed internal ID that rarely changes even if the store title does. ShortMax’s listing on Google Play uses the package live.shorttv.apps. That’s an strange choice for a brand called ShortMax, unless the app started life under another name. Right at the start, before marketing settles on a final title, developers usually pick the package ID. A package that spells out “shorttv” is therefore the kind of fingerprint that survives a rebrand. A package name, on its own, does not document a history; it only suggests one. The ID also shows up in the web address of the Play listing, so anyone can confirm this clue in seconds.
Clue Two: The Legal Entity Behind It
Buried in the fine print of both app stores lies the second clue. ShortMax’s seller on the App Store is SHORTTV LIMITED. Over on Google Play the developer is shown as SHORTMAX LIMITED, while the legal entity behind it is again SHORTTV LIMITED, with an address in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong. Hong Kong law also governs its terms of service. A studio renaming its consumer product while keeping the original company name is a common pattern in app publishing. Even if it does not prove the brands are the same, it puts ShortTV’s name on the contract you accept when you pay for ShortMax.
Clue Three: The Month of Launch
Thread number three is about timing. According to Baidu’s encyclopedia entry, ShortTV launched in September 2023. Google Play lists September 3, 2023 and the App Store gives September 11, 2023 for ShortMax, which appeared in the same month. A single product that launched once and later traded under a new name explains the overlap more simply. Nearly identical names on two unrelated brands debuting within the same few weeks would be a remarkable coincidence. Only a few months after that launch, in January 2024, China Daily was still referring to Jiuzhou’s English-market app as ShortTV. A shared month is still circumstantial, which is why it matters mainly in combination with the other clues.
The Fourth Clue: The Domain Redirect
The fourth clue is the easiest to verify, because it happens in your browser. As of September 2026, opening shortmax.com produces a permanent 301 redirect to shorttv.live. The same dramas the app streams are available to browse on that destination site in a web browser. Businesses normally point a domain only at property they control, so the redirect connects both names to one operator. Nothing about a permanent redirect is an accident of search results; it is a deliberate server setting. Nobody has written it down in a press release, yet this is nonetheless the closest thing in this file to a signed statement.
Clue Five: The Copyright Notice
The trail ends with a footer. The entity named in a copyright notice is usually the one that actually owns the content and the site. The line “© 2024 SHORTTV LIMITED” appears on a ShortMax page on the shorttv.live site. When you add the package name, the seller, the launch month and the redirect, the pattern is hard to read any other way. The rename should still be treated by careful readers as likely but unconfirmed. No one could find an official announcement of a switch from ShortTV to ShortMax, and the company may describe its brands differently in the future.
The Company Behind It: Jiuzhou Culture
Jiuzhou Culture, a Chinese short-drama producer, is the company behind the ShortTV name. Per a January 2024 report in China Daily, Jiuzhou 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 made by Jiuzhou, according to the same report. About 80% were dubbed adaptations of Chinese productions, and the remaining 20% were original shoots made overseas. The company placed the cost of a 70-episode short series at $100,000 to $150,000. This mix explains why the catalog includes 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. Coming from early 2024, those numbers are best read as a snapshot rather than a current tally. This studio is linked to the ShortMax brand you see in stores today by the ownership trail through SHORTTV LIMITED.
The Look-Alike Apps Problem
Because the short tv name is not protected in app store search, the case becomes messier here. None of the unrelated developers who publish apps with nearly identical titles is connected to Jiuzhou or ShortMax. Any one of these can easily end up installed instead by someone looking for a shorts app from the ShortTV team. Most people never read the developer field, and that is the only place the differences show up. The developer names recorded in the store listings appear in the table as of September 2026. Don’t treat the icon or title as the real ID; the developer name is the real ID.
| App name in the store | Developer or seller | Available on | Installs recorded | Connection to Jiuzhou’s ShortTV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ShortMax (package live.shorttv.apps) | SHORTTV LIMITED, Hong Kong | 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+ | Not related |
| Short TV – Drama & Shorts | BullFX | Android | Not recorded | Not related |
| Shortv | Instant Shadow Limited | iOS | Not recorded | Not related |
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 is priced at about $19.99 a week, with a cheaper tier at about $9.99. Monthly or yearly plans could not be verified, since the US store lists only weekly passes. Single purchases range from about $3.49 to $24.99, and prices vary by country, platform and promotion. Under the terms, passes are renewed automatically 24 hours before they expire, and refunds are turned down unless the service is unusable because of ShortMax. The “free trial” wording confused some users, as the developer’s own replies on Google Play admit. Episodes costing up to 60 coins without clear pricing up front are also a complaint from App Store reviewers. Cancellation happens in the App Store or Google Play subscription settings, and deleting the app does not stop the billing.
Before You Install: A Brief Checklist
Most mix-ups can be prevented by a few checks that take less than a minute. The point is to confirm you are getting the Jiuzhou-linked app and not a look-alike. It also helps you spot the pricing traps before you start a short series you cannot afford to finish. Stay away from any site offering modded versions or “unlimited coins”, because those are unofficial and risky. No special tools are needed for any of these steps, only the store page itself. Go through the list below before you tap install.
- Confirm the developer or seller shows SHORTTV LIMITED or SHORTMAX LIMITED.
- Verify that the Google Play install count is at 100M+.
- Check the in-app purchase list to see current weekly pass prices in your country.
- Note that passes keep renewing automatically until you cancel in your store settings.
- Skip any app whose developer name matches none of the above, however similar the title.