LAST month Liu Wei, an armless pianist and singer, won the first series of “China’s Got Talent”. En route to victory, he defeated bellydancers, comedians and a pig impersonator. The talent show was a ratings triumph: a third of all televisions in the Shanghai area tuned in for the final. But Yang Wenhong, vice-president of Shanghai Media Group, is just as pleased that the Communist Party’s media regulator praised the programme for conveying an uplifting message. In China, it is not enough merely to please the masses.
China’s television business has developed largely in isolation from the rest of the world. Despite heroic efforts, particularly by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, Western media firms have been unable to launch mainland channels. They have been restricted to TV sets in Hong Kong and in expensive hotels, or reduced to selling the odd programme to domestic networks. But isolation does not mean Chinese television is stagnating. On the contrary: it is progressing at a lunatic pace.
Money is pouring in. Last week China Central Television (CCTV) announced that it had already booked 12.7 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) of advertising for 2011—16% more than it had sold at this point last year. Total television advertising has grown sevenfold since 2001. It is by far the richest medium: fully 63% of all advertising spending in China this year will be on television, compared with just 28% in Britain. Andrew Carter of GroupM, the marketing firm which issues these estimates, explains that television is well-suited to bringing new products and brands to the attention of China’s fast-growing middle class.
The box used to be dominated by the state-run CCTV, which is controlled by the Communist Party’s publicity department. But despite the launch of new channels—it currently has 15, including one dedicated to opera—CCTV’s share of viewing is falling (see chart). Earlier this year it was overtaken by the combined audience of provincial broadcasters like Shanghai Media Group, Hunan TV and Zhejiang TV, which can each distribute one channel nationally. These provincial outfits, which are less controlled by Beijing, are locked in a fierce, untidy and occasionally underhanded struggle for viewers.
Not only do many of their shows resemble British and American programmes like “Pop Idol” and “The Apprentice”. They also rip off each other’s formats. “If a show is successful, clones appear almost instantly,” says Rebecca Yang of IPCN, a firm that brokers formats. A few years ago there was an explosion of talent competitions. Then one show offended the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), not least by conducting a huge text-message vote. Channels are now restricted to one such show per year. Judges are discouraged from abusing contestants and voting is restricted.
That has become a pattern. As talent competitions became more staid, producers turned their attention to dating shows, churning out programmes that encouraged bitchiness. Last summer one stepped over the line. A contestant on “If You Are the One” declared that she would rather cry in a BMW than smile on the back of a boyfriend’s bicycle. The host was promptly replaced by a psychology professor, but it was too late. SARFT has promulgated rules banning lewd comments and other moral provocations.
Why are these troublesome, populist broadcasters allowed to operate at all? Because the Chinese government wants people to watch television. The living-room set is a crucial conduit between the state and the masses. However ribald their programming at other times, at seven o’clock in the evening almost all channels carry CCTV’s starchy news broadcast, in which unsmiling anchors relay the latest utterances from party officials. If television becomes too dull, that show would lose its audience. After all, many Chinese can go elsewhere for entertainment.
Data from the Chinese Marketing and Media Study suggest that the internet accounts for 33% of all media use among 18- to 34-year-olds in Shanghai, compared with just 28% for television. Shanghai is an unusually forward-looking city, and people tend to underestimate their television watching. But internet video is undoubtably bigger in China than elsewhere. Victor Koo, chief executive of Youku, a video portal, says the average user spends an hour each day on his website. In contrast, people spend less than ten minutes each day on the America-based YouTube.
Some Chinese use online video as a way of catching up on programmes that they missed (very few have digital video recorders). But many use it to gorge on pirated Hollywood shows. Subtitled versions of programmes like “Gossip Girl” circulate in China just a few hours after they are broadcast in America. So widespread is pirated television that it has created stars. Wentworth Miller, who is best-known for his role in the Fox television show “Prison Break”, is mobbed when he visits China, and is the face of General Motors in the country. Yet “Prison Break” is not shown on any Chinese television network.
Broadcasters are thus caught between the state and the market, between conformity and populism. Both of their audiences are fickle: regulators clamp down on shows with little warning, whereas viewers are liable to switch off and watch pirated videos online or on DVD. Yet in some ways the business is settling down.
China’s provincial television outfits are consolidating, with the stronger broadcasters piggybacking on the weaker broadcasters’ national networks. Earlier this year Hunan TV persuaded Qinghai Satellite TV to carry some of its programmes. Shanghai Media Group secured national carriage for its local business channel by doing a deal with a broadcaster in Ningxia. Gradually, half a dozen strong television companies are emerging. A few are branching out: Shanghai Media Group publishes magazines and offers broadband service.
Flush with money, and determined to differentiate themselves from a mass of cheap knock-offs, China’s larger provincial broadcasters are beginning to import! foreign programme formats legitimately. Increasingly it is not enough to have (or to borrow) a good idea for a programme; broadcasters must create professional-looking content. They must also learn to work with sponsors. New restrictions on television advertising mean that money is flowing into product placement. Helen Yang, president of Vivid Media, an independent production company, says her company has moved from making programmes to creating marketing solutions for companies. That adds a layer of complexity, favouring the biggest outfits.
Chinese broadcasters are quickly learning how to produce slick-looking television. In a few years, predicts Ms Yang at Shanghai Media Group, they will be able to develop compelling programme formats of their own. And then, who knows? The notion of China as an exporter of culture may seem far-fetched. But it was once hard to imagine the country churning out advanced telecoms equipment.