对春晚别指望太多

 CCTV Spring Festival Gala,tune in or tune out?

WATCHING China Central Television’s (CCTV) Spring Festival Gala live on the Lunar New Year’s Eve is like dessert after the reunion dinner for most Chinese. It’s not necessarily the best part of the night, but without it, the festive atmosphere would be missing.

But, if you expect too much from the gala, you might be disappointed.

Beginning at 8 p.m. Saturday, the five-hour gala for the Year of the Tiger will feature stand-up comedy, singing, dancing, acrobatics, magicians and folk opera routines.

Performers will include folk singers Song Zuying and Tan Jing, pop singers Edison Chan, Joey Yung, Faye Wong and Wang Lee-hom, magician Lu Chen and comedians Zhao Benshan and Xiaoshenyang. It will be broadcast live on CCTV-1 and by satellite on English, Spanish and French channels.

A cultural phenomenon beginning in 1983 on the Chinese mainland, the CCTV gala has become an essential for most Chinese on the Spring Festival Eve, when families gather in front of the TV after a reunion feast and make dumplings for a midnight snack.

In recent years, viewers and domestic media have criticized the gala for a lack of creativity, but CCTV sources continue to claim annual TV ratings above 90 percent. According to Xinhua, research commissioned by China Television showed the rating for last year’s gala was 92 percent, with 55 percent thinking the show was “very good,” and about 26 percent rating it as “fairly good.”

Dissatisfaction mainly centered on humorless comedy acts, rising performers jockeying for exposure on the national broadcaster, too much commercialism and a waste of production money.

“The gala has become representative of the government’s will,” said Jia Ding, a Beijing-based TV gala planner and director, in an earlier interview with the Life Week magazine.

“China is rising as a great power, so the gala should display how the country is getting stronger in every respect. The show has become increasingly more lavish every year, but the luxury packaging cannot deliver what viewers really want.”

To pass the auditions, program-makers, particularly for stand-up comedies, had to avoid sensitive social topics or vulgar punchlines.

Stand-up comedies are always the most anticipated by Chinese because people want to laugh on this special night. However, disgruntled viewers complain that the comedies in recent years, which should reflect society as a form of critical commentary, were not at all funny.

“Nowadays, it’s quite difficult to create real comedy for the gala because comedians will not do satire in the CCTV galas,” said Pan Changjiang, a stand-up comedian who performed at the gala from 1993 to 2007. “It is a festive time and no one wants to make trouble. But, if comedy loses satire, is it still funny?”

“CCTV always assumes that as a national broadcaster, it has a great influence to attract stand-up comedy writers, while not paying them much,” said Zhu Hai, a CCTV gala director. “The annual gala might have been a star-making factory during the 1990s, but now, no one buys it because writers would rather write for a TV series than for a lowly paid 10-minute skit.”

With the gala being panned by critics and viewers online as lacking creativity and wasting a national treasure, some have called for the cancellation of the gala. In recent years, galas organized by ordinary people have become more popular online. Regional satellite TV stations, some of which have gained prominence in their own right (notably Hunan TV, Shanghai Dragon TV and Beijing TV), have also scheduled their own galas during the holiday.

Unlike the CCTV gala, which focuses more on the lives, dialects and customs of northern Chinese, the regional galas feature regional traditions. The Guangdong TV gala will collaborate with Hong Kong’s TVB to feature Cantonese and Cantopop stars. Xiamen Star TV’s gala will invite Taiwan celebrities and speak in the Fujian dialect. Shanghai-born NBA basketball player Yao Ming will host Shanghai Dragon TV gala. All these shows will be aired nationwide at prime time Saturday night via satellite.

The CCTV gala was once warmly appreciated during the 1980s when the country was recovering from the freeze of the “Cultural Revolution” and few Chinese had much nightlife. Despite the recent criticism, the gala is still a ratings powerhouse and the commercial revenue generated by the gala last year was 500 million yuan (US$73.53 million), according to the Chinese Business View.

Whether the Year of the Tiger CCTV show will be different or just so-so won’t matter. The gala always gains extremely large attention because the most anticipated TV show not only adds to the mood of celebration in China but has become an ingrained tradition for many Chinese.