08.16.07
What’s wrong with Chinese TV?
After almost a month as the co-host of “I Love Health” I am beginning to understand a thing or two about Chinese TV. The major observation I often hear about Chinese TV (from Chinese and foreigners alike) is that it is full of low quality programming. I now have several Chinese close friends with good English who frequently download American TV shows from the Internet. They all have all unequivocally told me that the American shows are superior to Chinese ones, and say that when given the choice, they would never watch a Chinese TV program over an American one too. Based on my own personal limited exposure to Chinese television (and TV as a whole), I would have to say I agree with this assertion.
There are several theories why Chinese TV is so…how can I put this nicely?…crappy. One is that the Chinese education does not emphasize creativity and arts as much as that of the West, and this is reflected by the film and television industry. While there is truth to this statement, I think it only represents a piece of the puzzle. Another factor is the relative youth of the Chinese TV/film industry. While the industry itself is not that young, it must be put into perspective that only three decades ago, the only TV and films permitted were those glorifying the Communist Party.
But another reason I am finding for the severe lack of quality programming in China is massive dilution of the talent pool. Much of this is because the Chinese media is still runs essentially like a 单位 (danwei), the old work units which were the building blocks of Socialism. While private enterprise is rapidly rendering the concept of a danwei job obsolete, government offices, schools, public hospitals, and the media all still operate under the old danwei system. What this means is endless levels of hierarchy, webs of bureaucracy, and at the very top cadres with leather day planners who don’t seem to do any actual work, but somehow have the highest salaries and the personal drivers.
Chinese TV operates under this system. Chinese TV has 3 levels: Central Television (CCTV) which is based out of Beijing, provincial television, and city television. CCTV is available all over China. Provincial channels are usually available regionally (i.e. Fujian Provincial TV in most Southeastern provinces, as well as most major cities), and local channels are typically only available in the cities they are broadcast from.
Unlike the US however, where local stations are typically only responsible for local news, in China local stations are often responsible for their own programming. Because of this, production, directing, and acting talent are all spread around the country, rather than being focused on several major TV networks, and then syndicated across the country. Consider my show as an example. My co-host, Zheng Zheng, is only one year out of college. She is attractive, speaks perfect Mandarin, and does a decent job reporting news with me on “I Love Health.” However, she is probably one of several thousand, and would not stand a chance compared to the announcers on CCTV. Then there is Ting Ting who writes and directs all of our material. Ting Ting does an excellent job preparing the material, and coaching Zheng Zheng and my performance. However, she just graduated college this spring…with an advertising degree…and she is the writer for a TV show. I know friends in the US who studied screen writing 4 years in college, waited tables in Hollywood another 4, and still never got their chance to write anything. Then of course there is me. Granted I speak Chinese, but so do several tens of thousands of other foreigners in China. I think I do a moderately decent job overall as an announcer, but there is no chance I would be on TV if shows if they were all centralized, even accounting for the fact I am a Westerner.
When you consider how dispersed the talent is over China, it starts to become clear why programming is so sub-par. The last two shows I was a contestant on, SuperMe and Superstar were both ripoffs of the famous Hunan TV show Super Girls, which is the famous Chinese clone of American Idol. They were both were produced by Fujian provincial TV, yet had no local connection to Fujian. Instead, they were just another one of the several hundred American Idol ripoffs currently in production in China. I can’t help but posit that if TV were centralized, and they rounded up all of the best talent from the hundreds of stations across the country, held try-outs, and began production with a top-notch staff, the quality would vastly improve. Instead, what we are stuck with are hundreds of small local TV stations, all producing their own redundant clones of the same TV shows.
Personally, I sense that a big reason TV centralization has yet to occur is because it would necessitate a restructuring of the system. This would require firing a great deal of the TV deadweight (cadres) as well as trimming down the personnel to only the best the country has to offer. This would not bode well with most of the people who would have the power to bring about such a change, and also would stand to cause considerable “instability,” the ultimate pet peeve of the CCP. Until this happens, we are probably stuck with the same stagnant programming.
Jeremy
said,
August 16, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Ben,
While pooling all of the talent in one place and syndicating shows across the country might help a little bit with the quality of programing, the main problem with Chinese TV is the lack of competition – whether it comes from other countries or within China.
If the only purpose of TV was to make money, and was not controlled by state owned enterprises or at least carefully regulated like it is, competition would immediately heat up. Only the shows that attracted viewers would survive.
China even keeps out substantial amounts of foreign programming as competition – remember the not so smart idea to ban foreign made cartoons during cartoon prime time? It’s because foreign made cartoons were destroying Chinese made ones.
It’s really about control – control of ideas, control of how one does things, and control of programmers &/or advertisers.
If China wants its television programming to improve, most stations should be for profit enterprises, there should be lower barriers to entry, and much lighter regulation.
Let the market decide.
Benjamin Ross
said,
August 16, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Jeremy-
You bring up a valid point, and I should have mentioned competition in my post as one of the factors behind the lack of quality in Chinese TV. The fact that Chinese TV is all state-run and profits are not the bottom line, does in many ways pose a barrier to the quality of the finished product. However, to say that competition is non-existent would not be totally accurate. For example, the two provincial TV stations here in Fujian (Fujian TV and Southeast TV) are constantly trying to one-up each other on programming. And even within the stations themselves there is considerable competition among producers to make the best programs. In fact, the producer of my show’s reason for having me as an announcer was to give his show an “edge” over other ones in town. I would not say the competition is as cutthroat as it would be in the US where TV is all about profit, but it certainly does exist.
ambrose
said,
August 16, 2007 at 8:49 pm
One thing, too, that never ceases to amaze me & my husband when we do watch Chinese (or even Hong Kong) tv. The shows have crappy production values, and yet the commercials are as sophisticated and slick as any you see anywhere in the world.
Michael Doo
said,
August 16, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Ben,
Let’s see some clips from your show to see how it compares to American TV!
Alan
said,
August 16, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Chinese TV does suck! That’s why I believe they should import CNN, TBS, TNT, TCM, and Cartoon Network. (A free plug for Time Warner – Turner Broadcast Company.)
Benjamin Ross
said,
August 16, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Anybody know of any good shareware which can convert video? Right now, I have MPEG’s of several of the shows but they are all several hundred megs.
The Wizard
said,
August 17, 2007 at 6:02 am
Ben,
Interesting article. You simplify a few things, such as overlooking the fact that Chinese television is much more d3mocratic than American television in many respects: particularly those regarding local origination programming.
American television used to work just as the current Chinese dynamic does.
Local stations created more than token “news” broadcasts.
A typical network-affiliated station in a medium-sized (and large) city up until 15 years would have a broadcast week that offered:
Local news. Local public affairs programming. Local religious crap programming. A local movie package, perhaps with a local talent hosting it, and local sporting events of some variety. This would be rounded out with syndicated programming (reruns of programs and original programming), movie package deals for films already past their network and cable peaks, a national news program (usually network affiliated), and then they’d switch to their prime time network feed (ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX, with UPN/WB/CW/PAK/ION/I much later on.
Independent stations often added more local origination programming as well as doubling up on syndicated programs and movie package deals. Some even carried more local sports (AAA baseball, high school sports, region pro-wrestling, etc.).
This all changed in the nineties. The dreaded infomercials became commonplace and the massive, corporate swallowing up of stations (thus rendering them cookie cutter carob copies of other stations under the same ownership) basically being run like a franchised MacDonalds (same crap on the menu but the customer service might fare better or worse). The FCC basically removed all responsibility to local communities from most stations and the local origination programming disappeared.
The young talent, and positions for young talent to start their careers dropped .Quality dropped. Any sense of community dropped. This really hit home for medium-small sized cities. It applies to radio, local newspapers and television stations, too. In fact, where I’m living, the local stations are little more than network carriers and “infomercial” whores. Two affiliates have token “news casts” that really have sweet f. a. for local news. In fact, Time-Warner cable started up a cable news channel for this region and it has more news coverage on my city than the local channels in my city – and its “local office’ is little more than a camera man/editor and the on-air reporter (she works her butt off, too).
20 years ago we had 4 options for local news and it was indeed news! Some of the anchors that got their start here went on to become important players in National Network and Cable news organizations. Not anymore. This is where the relative few young kids start their careers, or the detritus that got the hard luck part of life end their careers here.
What you get on the idiot box is basically the same thing the rest of the nation gets. Local “news” is barely there, and when shit hits the fan (i. e. a serious emergency) you have nowhere to turn to for information, since ht radio stations in one city are simply ISDN’d to a hard drive of pre-programmed, pre-recorded crap out of Texas, etc. “Local” television is the same.
There’s hardly anything “local” about it. The mandatory “HDTV” b. s. that congress and the N. A. B. have forced on the nation only ensures more bland, centralized, Stepford television and the death of local origination programming, come 2009.
China may have a lot of crap on television, but at least it’s coming from the city/provinces. It might be watered-down or cuckhold’d by the TV Danwei, but it offers more opportunities, more jobs, more choices, and they do possess local flavor.
It’s hardly the “pod people” situation that American television has become.
In fact, broadcast television has gotten so bad (mostly because religious crack pot jihadist “special interest groups” and the FCC won’t allow anything aimed at adults to be allowed to behave like an adult) the number of people going to cable continues to increase (I use Dish Network and Direct TV satellite as part of the “Cable” label, with HBO, etc.) .
Much of our “public airwaves” is little more than slicker-looking, over-produced crap that mimics what has been airing in Asia for decades: the “reality show,” the Variety show posting as a contest, prime-time game shows, prime time soap operas, etc.
American network television resembles Japan/Hong Kong/South Korea/Thailand/Philippino/Chinese TV now, more than ever.
With a few exceptions, most of those “downloaded” television shows your friends are enjoying were probably made for extended (i. e. F/X, TBS, TNT, SCI-FI, U. S. A., etc.) and pay (HBO, Showtime, etc) cable.
A minority of people control our entertainment industry, as you hinted at in your article. It is exceedingly rare for fresh-out-of-Uni talent to find a place to put their work in motion so it can develop. That’s not the case in China, as you’ve clearly illustrated.
In an odd way your piece does make an argument for centralizing China’s television using the American model as a reference. I think that would do more harm than good in China. As more private money flows into China’s television market, and with its large, diverse population (compared to other parts of Asia, for sure) and localize bits of culture – something really good could come it. Maybe not in large doses, but at least in some kind of dosage. The fact your fresh-out-of-uni producer has the progressive mindset to make a small, Fuzhou-based program with an international (i. e. YOU) co-host is pretty damn progressive, even if someone from another thread wants to argue that they think you’ve possibly tokenized yourself (I don’t share that visitor’s opinion, but their argument had logic behind it. I can’t deny them that. Misguided? Perhaps, but not illogical.).
As for video conversion: I MENTIONED THIS IN TWO PREVIOUS POSTS, but hopefully you’ll hear me this time:
http://www.videohelp.com
Thatsite should steer you in the right direction and help you find what you’re looking for.
Keep on keepin’ on.
anonnymouse
said,
August 17, 2007 at 7:18 am
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Vidomi maybe?
Matt Schiavenza
said,
August 17, 2007 at 1:18 pm
To expound upon the American example, consider the differences in quality between shows made for HBO and shows made for the networks. Because HBO and Showtime are not subject to FEC content regulation, they’re able to attract good writers and creative thinkers who prefer working in an unfettered atmosphere.
In China, I’d say (I don’t really watch Chinese TV but I should probably start) the problem is that there’s a relatively limited amount of content permitted under the strict guidelines of the Communist Party. I read an article recently saying that the endless costume dramas one sees often act as clever allegories for current political intrigue.
But then again…I don’t watch Chinese TV so I don’t really know. I do know the news……….sucks.
chriswaugh_bj
said,
August 17, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Like Signor Schiavenza I tend to avoid watching TV here, but unlike him I avoid it simply because it’s TV. To me, TV is the medium that failed miserably to live up to its potential. Despite the abundance of crap movies, worse newspapers, and magazines that make toilet paper look like interesting reading material, there are still plenty of great movies, newspapers and magazines. Good TV is a very, very rare thing. You must remember this first paragraph as you continue to read this comment.
I completely disagree that centralisation would help Chinese TV at all. See The Wizard’s comment for a good explanation why, an explanation that is far more succinct and intelligent than I could come up with. I have some sympathy with Jeremy’s comment, but not being a capitalist I have my doubts about the Market, and I would like to point out that local content quotas are fairly common around the world and in some places actually seem to be well-managed and therefore quite effective at guarunteeing local people quality local TV. So far as any TV can be called “quality”, of course.
And (remember the first paragraph as you read this) Chinese TV does actually have some pretty damn good programming. 小兵张嘎 (somebody please check the ‘ga’, I’m not sure of the character) and 铁道游击队, as in the recent TV series, not necessarily the original films, are two personal favourites. And I’m sometimes quite impressed with the programmes my wife watches (she’s the TV watcher; I stick with films, books or the internet). The first two series of 环球格格 are quite fun, and although 幸福像花一样 was not exactly my cup of tea, it certainly was a well-put together series.
arcorelli
said,
August 17, 2007 at 11:41 pm
I am not sure if the problem is lack of centralization, and then people with not that much experience or that could fail at national level goes to TV.
Since a chinese province -as you showed some posts ago- is huge in population, any large chinese population could have a decent pool of talent, able to make good shows (A province of 90 million should have some people good at TV, right?).
Aileen
said,
September 5, 2007 at 10:59 am
Jeremy,
lack of competition? There are more than 100 channels in the China, babe~ everywhere is competition~
Ben,
“I now have several Chinese close friends with good English who frequently download American TV shows from the Internet. ”
Do you know how many Chinese ppl dunt with gud Eng?
Chinese TV only targetting the local Chinese ppl, not foreigners…its still a national system, not global ~
There are many different types of programme 4 difference age groups, not everybody luv popular series, fashion MTV~
I believe that the quality of programing will change~China is developing!
Love China forever~ OH~YEAH~
jameswillisisthebest
said,
September 9, 2007 at 4:10 am
This is my first post
just saying HI
Ben
said,
February 6, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Hi, just found this place randomly, the bloger has exactlly the same name as mine….Abt Chinese TV, too tacky I think, lack of something, but meanwhile it has something overloaded (the political impact, u know) Chinese TV is still not that free and too much imitation…need more efforts from generations. But we got people, so Chinese TV has its good future~!
shane
said,
August 16, 2008 at 9:26 am
American television sucked big time one or two decades ago, look how much it had improved, mainly after American television imported elements from overseas.