Duan Linxi (left) and Hong Chen compete in the national final round of Super Girl, a populartalent show broadcast by Hunan Satellite Television, on Sept 16. Duan, who is from Yunnanprovince, won the national championship.
BEIJING - Hunan Satellite Television (HST) said it will not hold populartalent shows next year after the authorities said the channel violated abroadcasting time limit for Super Girl, one of the country's most popularTV talent shows, similar to American Idol.
Since some of this year's programs exceeded the maximum duration allowed by the StateAdministration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), "we received notification from theadministration that we cannot make selective TV trials with mass involvement of individuals inthe year 2012", Li Hao, deputy editor-in-chief and spokesman of the channel, confirmed toChina Daily on Sunday.
"Hunan Satellite Television will obey the State regulator's decision and will not hold similartalent shows next year. Instead, the channel will air programs that promote moral ethics andpublic safety and provide practical information for housework," Li said.
Super Girl was based on an annual national contest held by HST since May 2009. A similar TVtalent show that was seen as the forerunner of Super Girl ran for five years and swept throughthe nation.
This year, the contest began on March 30 andlasted into July, until all the national-final players were selected to go on theair.However, the first show - aired on July 15 - lasted about182 minutes, which is 90 minutes longer than theSARFT cap.
"The administration did set a telecast time limit in 2007,but in later approval documents it did not mention thelimitation, so we did not attach enough attention to thetime at first," said a staff member of the TV station, whodeclined to be identified.
"Later we received a verbal warning from theadministration and we immediately adjusted the telecasttime. But in later programs, there were cases where weexceeded (the time by) several minutes," he said.
In 2007, SARFT took several moves to regulate talentshows, including banning TV talent shows in prime time(7:30 pm to 10:30 pm) and limiting the duration of eachepisode to no more than 90 minutes.
The anonymous staff member also said that the ratingsfor the contest this year "kept being higher than otherTV programs of its kind".
"For me, exceeding the time limit is just an excuse toshut down the TV program, and there would have beenother excuses even if the TV station did not make theshows that long," said Jin Yong, a researcher at theCommunication University of China.
"I believe the reason that forced the administration to'regulate' this program is that some television hosts inthe program made inappropriate comments and somedid not dress properly," Jin said.
"The style might have offended some older viewers, sothat the authority warned the TV station with thesuspension order to make their program classier."
Under the 2007 regulations, SARFT stated that sometalent show programs were "vulgar" and did not conformto the healthy and positive orientation that TV programsshould have.
In 2010, SARFT published regulations on dating showsto curb media hype of money worship.
"These regulations could probably influence the showsin the short term but cannot stop them from developing,because more and more people want to escape fromserious issues on TV," Jin said.
In 2007, the administration issued rules intended touphold high moral standards during the sequel of HST's popular talent contest, Super Boy.
Super Boy, similar in format to Super Girl, was ordered to include only "healthy and ethicallyinspiring" songs.
The program was also told to avoid "gossip" about the contestants and not to show scenes ofscreaming fans or tearful losing contestants, as those were believed to be in "bad taste".
Xinhua contributed to this story.
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