A photo from the show Day Day Up (April 12, 2010). Photo: CFP
The Ministry of Culture recently said in a statement that songs that "harm the security of State culture must be cleaned up and regulated under the law," and on Saturday sent music websites its latest blacklist of 300 songs that fall into this category. Tracks from Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and several Asian artists will be removed by September 15 unless the record labels submit the songs for official approval, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.
It is not the first time that authorities have restricted entertainment. Earlier, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) regulated local satellite televisions from broadcasting TV dramas related to spying, criminal cases and romance in China during May, June and July.
Recently, they have targeted Happy Camp and Day Day Up, two of the most popular entertainment programs in China from Hunan TV, which have suddenly had to replay past shows from a few weeks ago rather than air new ones, an action that has stirred up heated debate among the public, according to Changsha Evening News.
"Was the replay of the two programs due to the restriction on entertainment programs launched by SARFT?" asked Jiang Honghong, a fan of Hunan TV that produces the two popular programs, while expressing her doubt to the Global Times.
Calls on Sunday from the Global Times to the SARFT went unanswered.
Tough restrictions
Happy Camp and Day Day Up, the two programs, which have come under question on Hunan TV – a station popular with youngsters for its entertainment content, both aired past episodes rather than new ones, which, according to Zhang Huali, deputy manager of Hunan TV, was because of technical mistakes, reported qq.com, one of China's largest portal websites.
"We want to apologize to our audiences because we had the two programs replayed after we made some technical mistakes," Zhang said on his verified microblog on Sina Weibo on August 19.
But this statement has hardly convinced netizens, who pointed out that technical mistakes would not take long to be solved since the two programs were not aired on the same day.
Furthermore, the previews of both programs were not aired by Hunan TV, which meant it already knew the latest performances would be suspended that week, according to qq.com.
In fact, Happy Camp was going to broadcast a pre-recorded program that had interviews with Lady Gaga, currently one of the most influential pop singers in Western music, and Aaron Kwok, a famous singer and actor from Hong Kong, but the program was temporarily removed, according to a Hunan TV staff member, qq.com reported.
"The new program was temporarily removed because it did not follow the instructions made by SARFT, which ordered that any programs involving foreign artists, or artists from Taiwan and Hong Kong should not be broadcast," Wumeishi, a TV planning and entertainment commentator, said on his verified Sina microblog.
A staff member from Hunan TV confirmed Wumeishi's statement by saying that SARFT has punished all Hunan TV staff members including its chief for not following the instructions, qq.com reported.
However, the issues behind the Day Day Up program were unknown.
The two programs both included new performances in its latest shows, but content involving overseas artists were not shown.
Deeper meanings
"I don't understand why Happy Camp and Day Day Up were restricted since I did not see any unhealthy content in the two programs. On the contrary, these programs help me feel relaxed after work because of their humorous styles," said Nanjing resident Jiang Honghong, 27, while expressing her frustrations to the Global Times concerning the SARFT restrictions.
However, Wang Yaya, 27, a Yangzhou resident in Jiangsu Province, voiced her support regarding the SARFT regulations. "These entertainment programs are always noisy and sometimes I can see they show the worship of money during the performances, which, I believe, might have negative effects on youngsters," she told the Global Times, "so, I think the restriction was to keep ‘poor taste and vulgar content' away from youngsters."
"We did not receive any restrictions from SARFT because we seldom invite overseas artists," an anonymous assistant director of an entertainment program at a Beijing-based television station told the Global Times, who also added the restriction on Hunan TV's entertainment programs might be helpful for other television stations to improve their competitiveness.
According to Yin Hong, professor and director of the Center for Film and Television Studies at Tsinghua University, the deeper reason behind the SARFT restrictions on Hunan TV's entertainment programs was because of the extreme competition that exists among other entertainment programs throughout the nation.
"In China, a popular entertainment program will usually be duplicated by TV stations nationwide in order to gain higher audience ratings, and therefore vicious competition arises. In this situation, the government has to use administrative methods to control the numbers of such programs and in most cases, it will choose to restrict the most popular or the most typical ones, and therefore, programs on Hunan TV are in danger," Yin told the Global Times.
But Yin expressed his doubts regarding the effectiveness of the restrictions. He said because the extreme competitiveness still remains, which means if another popular entertainment program appears, then it will more than likely be copied.
"I suggest SARFT pay more attention to encouraging entertainment programs to show innovativeness rather than restrict their emergence."
