Talent TV - National Victim of Regional Success

BEIJING --- Once again SARFT has issued a set of regulations covering an emerging area of popularity in Chinese TV, reality TV contests. Under the new regulations, provincial broadcasters are to be banned from running national talent shows. (See 2.3)

Once again, CMM-I background checks reveal a murky story of political interference to defend quasi-commercial positions. In the case of the new regulations, the aim is more obviously focused on the domestic scene, but this has not stopped equal amounts of head scratching around the world.

At first glance, the rules seem aimed at lessening the amount of sensationalism creeping into state propaganda networks. Another case of the 'old guard' mentality that SARFT, and its minder the Department of Propaganda, are known to exhibit whenever a new genre becomes too popular.

The challenges of modern SMS voting systems that allow the masses to choose their favorites was demonstrated to national effect last year with Hunan TV’s SuperVoice Girl (CMM passim) and the Party is bound to be concerned with this level of inter-active performance from non-propaganda programming.

However, the fact is that SuperVoice Girl and its would be clones are the subject of the latest smackdown for ultimately more troubling reasons.

While all broadcasters are owned and operated by the Party, national broadcaster CCTV retains special status within the government. While there is much written about increased competition to CCTV from regional broadcasters both in terms of programming and advertising, the fact remains that CCTV will always be the 'first among many' within the broadcasting sector.

The runaway success of SuperVoice Girl vaulted Hunan TV into one of the top rated positions of the year, making it one of the largest advertising and sponsorship revenue earners. The prospect of more shows in the pipeline at regional broadcasters caused a great amount of consternation at CCTV that has its own 'contest' show, Dream China.

Starting late last year, CCTV began complaining to SARFT about Hunan TV's show noting that as the 'national broadcaster', only CCTV should be allowed to solicit contestants on a national basis. This, CMM-I can reveal, is the source of the clause in the new regulations limiting regional shows from having contestants from outside its geographical area.

This means that a) sponsors for shows other than Dream China will not be able to benefit from opportunities wrapped around the national run-ups to the contests and b) viewers from around the country will not be able to see contestants from their own areas on national shows, except on Dream China.

Essentially, the new regulations privilege only CCTV to carry talent shows that will have both national ratings and sponsorship appeal. The price of success is very expensive in China. Bravo CCTV.