The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT)
will crack down on vulgar reality shows in 2007, said Wang Taihua,
general director of the SARFT on Friday.
The move is part of the efforts to "clean up TV screens," said
Wang at an annual work conference attended by heads of provincial
bureaus in charge of radio, film and TV studios and programs. Other
measures include tighter supervision of legal and entertainment
programs.
"There have been too many reality shows on our TV screens," Wang
complained. "Many are low-quality, low-brow programs, only catering
to the bottom end of the market."
Following the successful "Super Girls" inspired by "American
Idol," Chinese television stations have come up with more than 500
such programs.
Even reclusive Buddhists could not resist the lure of the
market. Shaolin Temple, hidden among deep mountains in central
Henan Province and famous for its martial arts, teamed up with
Shenzhen Television Station to run a Shaolin Kongfu star contest
last year.
But many viewers have complained that some competitors do their
utmost to reveal their bodies.
"There are too many reality shows, they are too chaotic and some
of them are too vulgar," General Director Wang told the national
conference. "The government must strengthen supervision of
entertainment programs, and restrict the number of reality show
programs to upgrade their quality."
He promised to step up efforts to provide guidelines for program
design, censor programs before they air, and carry out real-time
monitoring, in order to "curb the trend of pursuing higher audience
ratings by blindly catering to public sensationalism."
Different opinions
Xinhua News Agency?has learned that some delegates to the
meeting defended reality shows as a successful TV program format.
Some of them, like Central Television's "Inspiring China", are not
only famous but profitable.
As reality shows penetrate people's daily lives, Yu Guoming, the
vice-dean of Renmin University's School of Journalism and
Communication, said that the craze for reality shows reflects the
public's desire to participate.
"In a market economy, we should encourage this kind of
experimental move as long as they do not break the law or offend
moral criteria," Yu said.
"We should not lose sight of the fact that reality show contests
encourage the spirit of participation among ordinary people," said
Zhang Yiwu, a professor in?Peking University's Chinese
Department.
But noted scholar Lin Xudong warned that "when there are more
than 500 reality shows in the country bombarding TV screens
simultaneously, something must be done, even if such programs are
not wrong in themselves."
(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2007)