The Case: One Suspect, Two Names
When you type “short tv” into an app store, you are met with a crowd of lookalikes, a Chinese studio’s press history and, somewhere in the middle, a hit app named ShortMax. That tangle is the case this case file sets out to untangle. 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. No official rename announcement has turned up, so this theory, though strong, is not proven. So instead of taking anyone’s word for it, Fall Into Sweet Trap we will go through the public records one clue at a time. Every clue is small on its own, and the weight comes from how neatly they line up. By the end, you should be able to judge the claim yourself and, more practically, steer clear of installing the wrong short tv drama app.
Clue One: The Android Package Name
A package name is a fixed internal ID carried by every Android app, and it rarely changes even when the storefront title does. The package live.shorttv.apps is what ShortMax uses on Google Play. 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. So a package that spells out “shorttv” is precisely the kind of fingerprint that survives a rebrand. A package name, by itself, does not document a history; it only suggests one. The same ID also appears in the web address of the Play listing, so anyone can confirm this clue in seconds.
Second Clue: The Entity on Record
Buried in the fine print of both app stores sits the second clue. ShortMax’s seller on the App Store is SHORTTV LIMITED. Although Google Play lists the developer as SHORTMAX LIMITED, the legal entity behind it is once again SHORTTV LIMITED, with an address in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong. Hong Kong law also governs its terms of service. 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, though it does not prove the brands are the same.
Clue Three: The Month of Launch
The third thread is about timing. ShortTV’s launch is dated to September 2023 in Baidu’s encyclopedia entry. ShortMax appeared that very month, with Google Play giving September 3, 2023 and the App Store giving September 11, 2023. The overlap is more simply explained by one product that launched once and later operated under a new name. Were two unrelated brands with nearly identical names debuting within the same few weeks, that would be a remarkable coincidence. China Daily was still calling Jiuzhou’s English-market app ShortTV in January 2024, a few months after that launch. Still, a shared month is circumstantial, which is why it matters mainly in combination with the other clues.
Fourth Clue: The Web Domain Redirect
Among the clues, the fourth 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. At the destination site you can find online the same dramas the app streams. Nothing about a permanent redirect is an accident of search results; it is a deliberate server setting. Because companies normally point a domain only at property they control, the redirect links both names to one operator. That is the closest thing in this file to a signed statement, even though nobody has written it down in a press release.
Clue Five: The Copyright Footer
A page footer is the last piece of evidence. The name in a copyright notice is usually the one that actually owns the content and the site. The line “© 2024 SHORTTV LIMITED” shows up on a ShortMax page on the shorttv.live site. Taken together with the package name, the seller, the launch month and the redirect, the pattern is hard to read any other way. Even so, careful readers should treat the rename as likely but unconfirmed. No one could find an official announcement of a switch from ShortTV to ShortMax, and the company might describe its brands differently in the future.
Who Runs It: Jiuzhou Culture
The company behind the ShortTV name is Jiuzhou Culture, a Chinese short-drama producer. According to a January 2024 report in China Daily, Jiuzhou launched two overseas apps: 99TV for Southeast Asia and ShortTV for the US, Canada and Australia. The same report stated Jiuzhou had produced more than 600 mini-dramas for overseas markets. About 80% of those titles were dubbed adaptations of Chinese productions, and the remaining 20% were original overseas shoots. A 70-episode short series costs, by the company’s own figures, $100,000 to $150,000. Both dubbed Chinese stories and locally shot originals sit in the catalog, which that mix explains. Now, ShortMax’s own listing advertises more than 50,000 dramas in 19 languages, a company figure not independently audited. Read those numbers as a snapshot rather than a current tally, because they date from early 2024. It is the ownership trail through SHORTTV LIMITED that this studio connects to the ShortMax brand you see in stores today.
The Look-Alike Apps Problem
The case gets messier here, since the short tv name is not protected in app store search. Not one of the apps with nearly identical titles from several unrelated developers is connected to Jiuzhou or ShortMax. The differences show up only in the developer field, which most people never read. Someone looking for a shorts app from the ShortTV team can easily install one of these instead. Developer names as recorded in the store listings appear in the table as of September 2026. Do not treat the icon or title as the real ID; treat the developer name as the real ID.
| Store app name | Developer or seller name | Platforms | Installs | Link to Jiuzhou’s ShortTV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ShortMax (package live.shorttv.apps) | SHORTTV LIMITED, Hong Kong | Both iOS and Android | 100M+ in Google Play | Likely the same app; rename not confirmed |
| ShortTV: Watch Drama Shorts | HUNG LAM INVESTMENT AND CONSTRUCTION JSC | Android | 1M+ | No connection |
| Short TV – Drama & Shorts | BullFX | Android | Not recorded | No connection |
| Shortv | Instant Shadow Limited | iOS | Not shown | Not related |
How Much It Costs
Given that 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. Single purchases range from about $3.49 to $24.99, and prices vary by country, platform and promotion. Monthly or annual plans could not be verified, since the US store lists only weekly passes. Per the terms, passes renew automatically 24 hours before they expire, and refunds are refused unless the service is unusable because of ShortMax. A further complaint from App Store reviewers concerns episodes costing up to 60 coins without clear pricing up front. The “free trial” wording confused some users, as the developer’s own replies on Google Play admit. Cancelling is done in the App Store or Google Play subscription settings, since deleting the app does not stop the billing.
Before Installing: A Quick Checklist
Most mix-ups can be prevented by a few checks that take less than a minute. Confirming you are getting the Jiuzhou-linked app and not a look-alike is the aim. It also helps you spot the pricing traps before you start a short series you cannot afford to finish. Steer clear of any site offering modded versions or “unlimited coins”, because those are unofficial and risky. Just the store page itself is needed; none of these steps requires special tools. Go through the list below before you tap install.
- Check that the developer or seller reads SHORTTV LIMITED or SHORTMAX LIMITED.
- Confirm that the install count on Google Play sits at 100M+.
- To check current weekly pass prices in your country, read the in-app purchase list.
- Note that passes renew automatically until you cancel in your store settings.
- However similar the title, avoid any app whose developer name matches none of the above.