China cracks down on TV talent shows

China has issued strict new rules for TV talent shows, banning mass audience voting by mobile phone text message or internet and bumping the programmes out of prime time.

The order, posted on the website of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or Sarft, rounds out authorities recent crackdown on the hugely popular TV show format.

Analysts say Chinese authorities fear the shows’ mass popularity and their influence on society.

The move also comes amid a tightening of media controls ahead of next month’s Communist Party congress, a once-every-five-year meeting to appoint senior leaders and set major policies.

The order, dated Friday, acknowledges the value of TV talent shows, which proliferated after the success of the Hunan Satellite show Super Girls 2005, but also issues stringent requirements for the timing, programming and judging of such shows.

Sarft said the talent shows have “made healthy attempts in innovating the content, format and method of television broadcasting, enriching and fulfilling the public’s multilayered and diversified needs for spiritual culture”.

Super Girls 2005, China’s equivalent of Pop Idol, shattered ratings records, according to state media, with more than 400 million viewers tuning in to its finale, and several million voting by mobile phone text messages.

But Sarft added that some shows suffered from “problems of cheap tone, betraying the fundamental position of being positive, healthy and striving for improvement, damaging the image of TV broadcasting”.

The government order came after China recently banned the TV talent show The First Time I Was Touched – apparently over the trivial nature of bizarre gift-giving stunts staged by a contestant. Officials have also banned TV shows about cosmetic surgery and sex changes, as well as radio shows that discussed sex and drugs.

Sarft said in its new order that it wants “scientific judging standards” and will ban voting by mobile phone and Internet, with voting only to take place among live audiences.

State-run China Central Television or provincial satellite channels will not be allowed to air talent shows between 7.30pm and 10.30pm. And each talent show must last no more than two months, airing no more than 10 shows that last no longer than 90 minutes each, it said.

Only the final episode can be aired live, with a one-minute delay to prevent “problems”, according to the order.

Comments by the shows’ contestants, judges and hosts must be restricted to 20% of the programming, while singing competition contestants must perform mostly Chinese songs, it said.

Producers will also have to submit lists of judges and guests and ensure contestants’ “stage presence, language, hairstyle and wardrobe meet public standards of beauty”.

Analysts have said Sarft’s recent crackdown is motivated by genuine public outrage about falling broadcasting standards and the effects on society of mass audience voting – some zealous fans pooled money to buy multiple mobile phone cards to vote en masse for their favourite contestants.

Others believe the Chinese government is concerned that mass public voting could be used to express social or political dissent.