BEIJING,
Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television
(SARFT) will crack down on vulgar reality shows in 2007, said Wang Taihua,
general director of the SARFT on Friday.
Reality TV is booming in China.
The move is part of the efforts to "clean up TV
screens," said Wang at an annual work conference attended by heads of provincial
bureaus in charge of radio, film and TV studios and programs. Other measures
include tighter supervision of legal and entertainment programs.
"There have been too many reality shows on our TV
screens," Wang complained. "Many are low-quality, low-brow programs, only
catering to the bottom end of the market."
Following the successful "Super Voice Girls" based on
"American Idol," Chinese television stations have come up with more than 500
such programs.
Even reclusive Buddhists could not resist the lure of
the market. Shaolin Temple, hidden among deep mountains in central Henan
province and famous for its martial arts, teamed up with Shenzhen Television
Station to run a Shaolin Kongfu star contest last year.
But many viewers have complained that some
competitors do their utmost to reveal their bodies.
"There are too many reality shows, they are too
chaotic and some of them are too vulgar," General Director Wang told the
national conference. "The government must strengthen supervision of
entertainment programs, and restrict the number of reality show programs to
upgrade their quality."
He promised to step up efforts to provide guidelines
for program design, censor programs before they air, and carry out real-time
monitoring, in order to "curb the trend of pursuing higher audience ratings by
blindly catering to public sensationalism."
DIFFERENT OPINIONS
Xinhua has learned that some delegates to the meeting
defended reality shows as a successful TV program format. Some of them, like
Central Television's "Inspiring China", are not only famous but profitable.
As reality shows penetrate people's daily lives, Yu
Guoming, the vice-dean of Renmin University's School of Journalism and
Communication, said that the craze for reality shows reflects the public's
desire to participate.
"In a market economy, we should encourage this kind
of experimental move as long as they do not break the law or offend moral
criteria," Yu said.
"We should not lose sight of the fact that reality
show contests encourage the spirit of participation among ordinary people," said
Zhang Yiwu, a professor in Beijing University's Chinese Department.
But noted scholar Lin Xudong warned that "when there
are more than 500 reality shows in the country bombarding TV screens
simultaneously, something must be done, even if such programs are not wrong in
themselves."
