Shaftesbury Films has sold the period drama Murdoch Mysteries to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

The one-hour Citytv series, starring Yannick Bisson as a detective working in Victorian-era Toronto, will air on CCTV-8, a niche drama channel that reaches into a staggering 200 million Chinese homes.

Murdoch Mysteries, based on the novels by Maureen Jennings, will see the first two seasons of the Canadian drama dubbed into Mandarin before it airs as part of an international programming block on CCTV-8.

Three seasons of the Canadian drama have been produced and gone to air on Britain’s Alibi channel and into another 100 channels worldwide via distribution deals done by ITV Studios.