(The judges of "The Voice of China" are (from left) Harlem Yu, Na Ying, Liu Huan and Yang Kun/Shanghai Daily)
TV viewers and experts have reacted with delight to the conclusion on Sunday night of the first series of hit variety show The Voice of China, praising it for bringing grassroots talent and wholesome content to primetime.
The program, a Chinese version of Dutch series The Voice of Holland, has been credited with helping rehabilitate the TV entertainment genre after authorities were moved to crack down on vacuous, vulgar broadcasts earlier this year.
The Voice of China's popularity also drew record advertising, the final episode attracting an ad spend of 500,000 yuan (about 79,550 U.S. dollars) per second.
Introduced to the schedules by Zhejiang TV in east China's Zhejiang Province on July 13, its format sees music stars Na Ying, Liu Huan, Harlem (Yu Chengqing) and Yang Kun act as judges cum tutors to appraise the singing talents of applicants drawn from the public.
The four sit on swivel chairs firstly with their backs toward the contestants, so as to judge them objectively based on their singing performances. They then offer professional guidance to singers selected for subsequent rounds to help them to hone their skills.
The show quickly become a hit around China and topped a league of all variety shows broadcast by the country's local TV stations, based on audience figures, according to Zhejiang TV.
"The Voice of China" remained among the most frequently searched-for topics on Baidu, China's search engine giant, during the show's run. On Sunday, over 52 million messages about The Voice of China were posted on Sina Weibo, the Twitter-like microblogging service.
