We read the piece below and had to have a long, hard think. And then we laughed:
China’s ‘Super Girl’ TV Show Is Pulled For Household Tips
“Hollywood studios rushing to cash in on the huge Chinese market would be wise to be mindful of Beijing’s ultra-aggressive culture cops.
Government censors have struck for the second time in a month, kiboshing the popular TV show Super Girl, a music show comparable to American Idol.
In its place, Hunan Satellite Television said it will broadcast shows about housework and “morally improving topics.” Jeremy Goldkorn, who follows Chinese media on his Danwei.com blog, said he didn’t think the content was the key. “I think it’s more about clamping down on the uppity provincial station,” he told the UK’s Guardian newspaper, “making sure they don’t have a runaway hit that puts (state broadcaster) CCTV to shame. Earlier, Chinese censors banned more than 100 websites featuring songs from Lady Gaga, the Backstreet Boys and others”.
Personally, we think it has nothing to do with Hunan TV versus the Orwellian -named and Government owned and run Big Brother of Chinese television that is CCTV.
“Super Girl” has been going on for around 4-5 years with no problems with CCTV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wU3RiiieXM
If there is a real problem, it has to do with the fact that the talent has becoming less and less, well, talented.
Plus – and this is key – the main prize of winning a recording contract means squat these days.
Many of these “Super Girl” winners and runners-up have made records with many of the majors and which have either stiffed or have been shelved – indefinitely.
Diane Warren herself wrote one song for one of these “Super Girl” winners signed to local music company Gold Typhoon and it died a death.
Music doesn’t sell in China – anyone who says it does is lying and even ‘live’ shows by previous winners of this show – popular for a nanu second – have now lost their novelty.
So, the censors have banned records by Gaga etc. Big deal.
Chinese censors have been banning records for decades and why these recent bans are getting so much publicity is baffling.
Hell, when at EMI, we had the Stones’ “40 Licks” turned into 36 licks but with “Street Fighting Man” approved by the censors. Go figure.
We were “banned” and could not release any records for a month because of an “offending” album cover by the band Placebo. Go figure, again.
Bring on those shows about housework and “morally improving topics”.
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