China clamp down on X Factor-style shows for promoting “uniformity”

Media authorities in the world’s most populous country have issued a statement compelling satellite TV stations to control the number of singing contests, in a bid to combat the “uniformity” and excessive “sentimentalism” of the genre.

The newly-merged Chinese State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television put out the edict in response to the superfluity of similar X Factor-style shows, with twelve such singing contests affected by the policy.

Billboard have reported that seven programmes will continue their runs, while the airing of two post-production shows has been postponed to free up space in summer scheduling. Three that are yet to begin production have been scrapped, including a contest centred around patriotic revolutionary songs, called ’Zhongge Honggehu’ or ‘China’s Red Songs Contest’.

As well as the sheer volume of the shows themselves, the move also targets the ostentation and melodrama endemic to the format, and the statement claims that media regulators will, in turn, promote “original television programs which are closer to reality, to life and to the masses”.

The regime’s crackdowns on music have claimed various victims over the years, from the Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want It That Way’ – banned for its perceived impropriety – to artists themselves. Four years ago Tibetan singer Tashi Dhondup was imprisoned and sentenced to forced labour for his songs’ “counter-revolutionary content.”