China Cuts 'Excessive Entertainment' From TV 336
An anonymous reader writes "Chinese broadcasters have axed two-thirds of popular TV shows in line with a government directive to curb 'excessive entertainment.' From the article: 'The rule, first announced in October, is targeted at what Chinese regulators have called "excessive entertainment and a trend toward low taste," to address the rise of talent shows, dating shows and other such programming aired by China's tightly regulated, but increasingly competitive, regional satellite broadcasters. Authorities also encouraged broadcasters to air more news and educational programming.' according to local media reports."
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That's true of geeks, but I wonder how true it is of most Chinese. We shouldn't underestimate how much the government can shift media consumption patterns by making access more difficult.
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You seriously underestimate the spread of technology in China.
Re:That's true (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny story - the spread of technology in China is almost guaranteed to topple the idiots running North Korea. Firstly, it's made most Chinese despise the North Korean government, which makes the Chinese - North Korean alliance a bit of a farce. Everyone except North Korea (who think China is still their friend) knows that China's only concern now is whether or not it suffer any collateral damage (i.e. bombs, shells, or fallout falling on Chinese soil), and how to deal with the refugees.
More importantly, North Koreans buy black-market goods from China. This includes iPod clones, many of which will come sold pre-loaded with the best Korean entertainment videos, all of which come from South Korea. It's getting harder and harder to explain that they are so superior, when all the South Korean shows are about families which are 10X richer than the families shown in pro-North propaganda.
And Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
We still see video of people falling over themselves weeping when Kim-Jong "mentally" ill dies. Not to say that those videos aren't at least partially staged, but some "undercover" video has leaked out of NK showing that at least some of the weeping, wailing and carrying on was genuine. (I apologize for not having a link ATM. Search on YouTube. It's there.)
Not to say that the new regime isn't weak, it certainly is. But not so weak that ipod clones are going to topple them anytime soon. We see how well "westernization" has "toppled" the communist Chinese government. (IE: Not at all) If Kim-Jong Un decides to modernize and westernize following the Chinese model, Korea isn't likely to see unification anytime in the next century.
Sadly, there really is only ONE way to absolutely topple a government of any stripe. That's with violent revolution. The only way that Korea will unify is if SK invades and defeats NK. With NK's recent round of sabre-rattling, that's looking more and more likely every day.
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I have no problem accepting its genuine grief. In a state with tightly controlled media, no internet access, no travel, and a sophisticated propaganda machine, all those that don't live near the boarder quite likely don't know any better.
From their perspective everything they have, what little they do, is a gift from Dear Leader, they have no idea what he has denied them. They don't know have abusive, and capricious his system of law is, because as far as they are concerned its either that or law of the j
Re:And Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
China knows how to topple a civilization just fine. Give them free fish for years until they have forgotten what a fishing rod is and their children have never seen one, then withdraw the fish. That's how they're beating the west.
Re:And Yet (Score:5, Informative)
No, it would not at all.
Note that what happened to the Soviets was NOTHING like what happened in China. In the Soviet model, (Perestroika) over a century of oppression was simply dropped and a totally closed society was suddenly and without warning thrown open to the world. The ensuing reaction was almost predictable; Complete chaos and collapse of the Soviet regime.
Let us not forget that there WAS some violence that followed. Unfortunately for the soviets, their military decided to side with the people over the government. Tanks showing up at the gates of the Kremlin to close down the government rather than defend it ended the revolution with a victory for Freedom rather quickly and mostly bloodlessly.
The Chinese noted these events and decided that they wanted nothing to do with it. Remember that the Tienanmen Square incident was right around the same time. For a short time it appeared that Communism was collapsing all over the world all at once. (it was a great moment to live in, let me tell you.)
Sadly, the Chicoms had no intention to go quietly. They had a very different relationship with their military, and the military rolled Tanks into the square to defend the government and drive out the protestors. The crackdown afterwards was BRUTAL.
I had a college roommate who was in Tienanmen Square that day. Afterwards he fled China and was accepted into the US under political asylum. He told me how many of his friends "disappeared" before they could escape. That's how bad it was in those days.
The Chinese later began to loosen things up, but only incrementally, and ALWAYS under government control. Even after foreign companies were allowed in China, it was always under very strict rules. If you didn't play along, they booted you out. (even McDonalds got kicked out.) Over time these rules have loosened, but control has always been in the governments hands.
What westernization they have allowed has always been with a single goal: To keep the people COMPLACENT. Give them minor luxuries, allow them to keep a small modicum of their natural freedoms and let them get comfortable and lazy. Otherwise, keep them too busy working and living their lives to have time for revolution. (Why do you think they have essentially created an "Island" Internet via the "Great Firewall of China"? To keep revolutionary ideas out while still allowing controlled financial interaction with the rest of the world.)
It's an ingenious formula and has worked very well to keep the Chicoms in power. If NK decides to follow this model, don't expect a revolution.
Re:And Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
They cried, because in a tightly controlled country with government media, the loss of your leader is like losing a family member. It's like losing the person the entire country, and you yourself, relied on. They cried because they were at a loss as to what to do. It's losing the person running the country, the only person capable of doing so (or so they believed), and having certainty replaced by uncertainty. If you're a believer, it's like losing your prophet.
That might not have been the situation for everyone, but for a big percentage of the population, it was entirely genuine.
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This is false. My parents were there.
They cried, because in a tightly controlled country with government media, the loss of your leader is like losing a family member. It's like losing the person the entire country, and you yourself, relied on. They cried because they were at a loss as to what to do. It's losing the person running the country, the only person capable of doing so (or so they believed), and having certainty replaced by uncertainty. If you're a believer, it's like losing your prophet.
That might not have been the situation for everyone, but for a big percentage of the population, it was entirely genuine.
Interesting. Simply knowing that there is one guy in charge, who could lead you to prosperity, or run your country into the ground, one who might have you arrested tomorrow, simply because he does not like your attitude, and that, under this guy, things are running smoothly. Now, he's dead and some stranger has that power. Considering how worked up people get about Presidential elections in the US, I could see how this uncertainty alone would make for a stressful situation.
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They use a different script though- "Traditional" vs mainland China's "simplified" version.
All power to China (Score:2, Interesting)
Excessive entertainment over the tube is one of the lead causes of the downfall of the Western nations.
Turn on the tube if you don't believe me, flip some channels, see how many of the programs are of any value in the first place?
No wonder over 90% of the American high school graduates can't even pinpoint their own country - the United States of America - on the world map.
They have been dumbed down by the entertainment industry.
Re:All power to China (Score:5, Insightful)
No wonder over 500% of Slashdot users post hyperbole without anything to back it up.
Seriously, I don't know if you're joking or not, but your post is just false premises, non-sequiturs and made-up "facts". Analysis:
Excessive entertainment over the tube is one of the lead causes of the downfall of the Western nations.
You need to establish the premise of "the downfall of the Western nations" (whatever that means), then establish a cause-and-effect relationship between "excessive entertainment over the tube" and the former.
Turn on the tube if you don't believe me, flip some channels, see how many of the programs are of any value in the first place?
How are you establishing the "value" of TV programs exactly? By your own judgement as whether it's something you'd like to watch?
No wonder over 90% of the American high school graduates can't even pinpoint their own country - the United States of America - on the world map.
Citation needed. Or an admission that you just made this up.
They have been dumbed down by the entertainment industry.
Non-sequitur. Even if you establish two concurrent trends, it doesn't mean there is a connection or cause-and-effect relationship between them. [wikipedia.org]
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Not so, Only people who are already dumb watch this crap
Re:All power to China (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not looking for watertight scientific proof, but the GGP makes an extraordinary claim (i.e. that excess of "entertainment" TV shows causes the downfall of Western nations), and indeed it's possible this is right, just as it's possible the world is run by a secret society of reptilian fascists [wikipedia.org]. However, the GGP presents it as fact, and with no supporting evidence and only an illogical argument and further extraordinary claims to back it up, I see no reason to accept the claim.
If he had presented it as opinion (which it is), and had omitted the ridiculous reference to the level of geography fail among US high school grads, then I wouldn't have had any cause to challenge it.
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Maybe he doesn't support with links what he claims, but he is nevertheless right. We are all dumbed down by the entertainment industry.
Perhaps if you watched Discovery instead of MTV, you'd be aware of the Flynn Effect
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Flynn Effect [discovery.com] (Link didn't work the first time)
Errm, IQ Scores are always centered at 100 by definition. Ergo average IQ score can't go up or down, only the raw survey scores can. Who would have thought that the very channel you praise for not dumbing down the populace would dumb down that fact.
Re:All power to China (Score:5, Informative)
Flynn Effect [discovery.com]
(Link didn't work the first time)
Errm, IQ Scores are always centered at 100 by definition. Ergo average IQ score can't go up or down, only the raw survey scores can. Who would have thought that the very channel you praise for not dumbing down the populace would dumb down that fact.
Erm, no, sorry. IQ Scores are NOT always centered at 100 by definition. As raw scores shift higher, IQ scores will likewise shift higher until the the raw-score-to-IQ-score conversion process is renormalized. How often are they normalized? It wasn't an easy question to answer, but I found one website that claims they are only normalized "every 10 or so years".
http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/culture_iq_notes_5.html [psychpage.com]
Also, it seems that before the Flynn effect was discovered, there was no such periodic renormalizaion (which makes sense...why would you renormalize before anybody has even discovered that they've become unnormalized). Therefore at the time the Flynn effect was defined, scores were not normalized, and the Flynn effect was indeed described as IQ scores increasing over time. Look around the web. Every single reference to the Flynn effect I can find, even those from reputable sources, describe it as an increase in IQ scores over time. For instance, here's a page on it from a Psychology Professor at Indiana University:
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml [indiana.edu]
But congratulations on getting a +5 Informative for posting incorrect information. Maybe you should watch more Discovery Channel.
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Perhaps if you watched Discovery instead of MTV, you'd be aware of the Flynn Effect
I don't watch any of them.
Thanks for the information about Flynn Effect, it's quite interesting, but if it's really true (Don’t believe any statistics you don’t make up yourself) that would mean that the situation is even sadder - general population is more intelligent as before, but not using that intelligence (just like before).
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The media industry gets more money giving people what they want rather than giving people what they "should" get. You want "mental junk food" all the time? Sure no problem. Even google has been known to change their search results so that each user gets more of what Google thinks the user would want.
There are 24 hours in a day, you're not going to learn as much about the world if you spend most of it playing FarmVille (or Happy Fa
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This requires that we were "all" smart in the first place. I would argue that we have a more intelligent populace overall than at anytime in History.
That is true, and very sad, because we don't use that intelligence:
Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?
- Benjamin Franklin
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While I can find the US on a map, I don't know how to replace a serpentine belt. Does that make me dumb?
You would think so, but not so much (Score:5, Interesting)
There are several online services which offer loads of pirated TV shows and even movies. For example, my wife uses a streaming program called funsion to watch HIMYM, Big Bang and other popular American TV shows.
As of yesterday, those show are no longer available. This was also the case on the two other alternative services.
Granted, one can use a VPN tunnel, but most people will not be willing to pay money for a VPN which is fast enough to stream.
I do happen to pay for premium VPN services, but as I was last in China, it was impressively slow. Enough for real google results and such, but not enough for netflix.
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If the viewers can't find what they want on the tube, they'll get it somewhere else.
-jcr
Some of them will. Majority will just channel surf and watch the most bearable programmes they find.
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If the viewers can't find what they want on the tube, they'll get it somewhere else.
-jcr
If Chinese Idol isn't produced, they will be hard pressed to find it. And no, American Idol will not be a suitable replacement - after all Americans aren't watching the original either. Every country wants their own asshole judges and overconfident, untalented contestants. And hardly anyone cares about the winners for that matter.
Its hard for me to critisize this move. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had my own country, I would make reality TV illegal too.
Re:Its hard for me to critisize this move. (Score:4, Funny)
I was going to say, if only we would legislate the x factor out of existence too... good on the chinese for using authoritarian government for good.
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Re:Its hard for me to critisize this move. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have the right to hate any show you don't like and refuse to watch it. You don't have the right to tell other people what they like.
Re:Its hard for me to critisize this move. (Score:5, Interesting)
Are people actually choosing to like reality TV?
Or are they choosing to simply watch what the media companies offer?
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Are people actually choosing to like reality TV?
Or are they choosing to simply watch what the media companies offer?
yes, they are choosing to watch it. if they're choosing to like it is another matter, how can anyone choose what they like?
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I mean yeah, there's a lot of shit on TV. On the other hand, maybe people here are just being assholes. As it turns out, the fact you don't like
Re:Its hard for me to critisize this move. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like reality TV, either.
However, I'd personally lead the rebel army that took down your fascist ass. :-)
Re:Its hard for me to critisize this move. (Score:5, Funny)
Sign me up!
And can we take a TV camera with us, would make a nice show ;-)
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- Evelyn Beatrice Hall (as a summation of Voltaire's attitude.)
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Which would be a dumb move. A dictator stays in power by providing bread and circuses. The last thing he wants is an educated, intelligent population, because the last thing such population wants is him.
That's why this is a pretty surprising move on Chinese government's part. Have they started believing their own bullshit, or is "education" just a code word for "propaganda"?
Yes, concerning, free speech, etc (Score:5, Interesting)
But after being pestered by so many Big Brothers and other related horrors, it's very hard for me to frown upon the chinese here.
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it's also about keeping viewers on governmentally administered channels(by axing competing shows on less controlled channels, though one could argue that they're all pretty controlled since they can do that).
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So there's a dearth of satellite bandwidth, is there?
Actually in some parts of the world, there is a shortage
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I seem to remember in my home country that watching tv-shop on major channel at 17.00 because there was no competition sucked. and we had fucking bold&beautiful on prime time. and matlock. talk about quality for 6 hours a day on 2 publicly funded channels and 1 commercial! you know the public tv stations heavily lobbied _AGAINST_ the commercial vendor having the right to produce news? it's not fun to give up a monopoly on an entire nation.
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This time around it doesn't look like a free speech issue, but more like a preparation for succession issue. The current leadership in China is already old (this is the Deng cohort, pres. Hu is already 70), and he seem to be getting China ready for a new generation of political leaders. When you do leadership change in this kind of regime, you do everything to ensure smooth succession to the people you chose.
There was even an old Soviet joke about the perils of transition. If memory serves, Radio Yerevan
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Back in UK for Christmas and I was shocked at how long the adverts last. Looking at ITV2 tonight, Oceans Twelve runs from 10pm to 12.30pm. IMDB tells me run time is 125 minutes. So 1/2hr, or 20%, of the film is adverts. Makes it impossible to enjoy a film.
Phillip.
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Funny enough, my first thought was "if only they'd do that here". I have almost stopped watching tv, because there is almost no factual programs, and the ones there are, are mostly rehashes of old "nature themes" with added soundtrack.
It would be really nice if they went for less "wow, awesome" and more insight and real knowledge.
Re:Right because if one place does it it is ok (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously I get real tired of the America basing some people feel the need to do whenever anything about another country comes up...
2) Not everyone on the Internet lives in America. Maybe they are interested in news about other countries, ever think of that? Stop trying to steer everything back to your country. There are plenty of discussions on /. about the shit that happens in America. Don't hijack others.
You do realize the GP didn't mention America at all in his comment, don't you? It was only you who mentioned America. In essence, you're doing exactly what you said shouldn't be done.
I'm Canadian, and I had a similar sentiment as the GP. I think _you_ should stop steering the discussion towards America.
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I just love hearing how awful popular entertainment is from people who buy Space 1999 on Blu-Ray, think Firefly was the pinnacle of western civilization, and just never seem to get tired of zombie shows and films.
Big whoop (Score:4, Interesting)
just go without cable and save yourself 100 bucks a month
Re:Big whoop (Score:5, Interesting)
I tried to do that last month, because I had sold my big screen TV, there being nothing but crap on basic cable any more. Instead Comcast made me a 6 month deal to pay less for internet, and still keep TV service, even though I have no way to watch it. My bill is $20 a month less, so I really don't care how they split it, but it's interesting how hard they tried to keep me on TV service. I wonder if they get paid by advertisers according to audience as measured by subscriptions? Then it doesn't actually matter if I don't watch.
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Thank you! (Score:2, Redundant)
No X-factor??? (Score:2)
Irony (Score:5, Funny)
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It's their nationalism streak.
They must have felt the U.S. was making a parody of their government policy.
Ummmm.... (Score:2, Funny)
After watching cable TV in the US over the holidays, could I ask that they do the same thing to American TV?
(Only partially tongue-in-cheek).
Practical arguments against? (Score:4, Insightful)
Beside the obvious "OMGFreeSpeech" and "OMG1984" arguments, in the face of garbage programming like American Idol, Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, etc, what practical non-what-if arguments are there for this being a bad thing?
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Because being entertained makes people happy and being happy is better than not being happy.
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But watching most of these programs makes people miserable. Watching all the glamor and riches makes the dreary of reality impact all the worse. Unlike movies that are obvious fantasy these lie that this could be real. They have zero educational value, they will never make people feel better. They are just a drug that sucks people's energy and turns them into brainless trash.
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You can't make people better without making them their choices to be better.
And by the way, bashing "American Idol" is getting old, it is high class performances. Yes, it's overcrowded with money and hype, and it's marketed mainly for teens, but lot of things are. For example those geekish cartoons you loved when you was ten.
Re:Practical arguments against? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's pretty condescending. What makes you think they can't watch a few hours of television and still be informed? When people refer to large groups of people as "sheeple" and wail they won't "wake up" it implies if only people were paying attention they'd think like I think. Well, and stay with me here, maybe they already question things, they're already involved, and they already "challenge things they feel aren't right." Maybe their vision of how things ought to be isn't the same as yours.
I'm guessing from the way your post is written you're not from the US. I'm at a little bit of a loss to understand why you think we in the US would make our country just like yours if only we didn't watch so much television.
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http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm
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The number of "Gosh, I wish this authoritarian bullshit would happen here because I don't like what my neighbor watches on TV" posts is seriously disheartening. WTF happened to the geekverse?
Re:Practical arguments against? (Score:4, Insightful)
I care when it's gotten to the point where there is literally nothing to watch that doesn't leave me feeling disgusted. I don't care what any individual is doing, but as a society it cannot be good that programming has gotten so low; filling our brains with this stuff is not going to advance us anywhere, so why are we wasting valuable spectrum on it?
Wipe it out and replace it with something intelligent.
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It's actually worse than you think. It's not just filling brains with mush and turning people into passive vegetables, it actually shapes the aspirations of society. Who wants to work hard and become an astronaut when you can just do nothing all your life then suddenly sing or dance on a stage and become the most desired person in the country? In the UK the contestants in this show "Big Brother" have actually become celebrities in their own right! It's ridiculous, they have contributed nothing of value.
Phil
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Against the "release educational shows" proposed by the Chinese government which leads to:
Less people watching 'bread and circuses' shows, leading to less revenue for _media and entertainment companies_ (after all, all the ads are doing is trying to define a preference in a market that's largely for things we will use anyway, unless you want to stop using soap, shampoo etc. The market for them will still be there, just may shift a few percent around companies if there weren't ads), leading to people being
"For The Evulz" literally (Score:2)
I didn't realize that it is actually possible for a government to decide their people are having too much fun.
Vice Taxes (Score:5, Interesting)
We tax the snot out of cigarettes and booze because they aren't healthy for society... we've had a TV in every home for 50+ years now, and parents are exposing their children to TV from birth... if you can't restrict people's use of TV, you might as well remove the incentive to watch it by making it more informational/educational, rather than an "opiate of the masses".
We ended up with the evening news in a response to a federal mandate that X% be used for reporting the news, how much better off would we have been if we'd restricted entertainment to Y% of the total broadcast time? How would society be if we limited mass entertainment? Would local entertainment like playhouses still be much more successful?
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if you can't restrict people's use of TV, you might as well remove the incentive to watch it by making it more informational/educational, rather than an "opiate of the masses".
Exactly, TV in the west is used for this:
http://abstrusegoose.com/397 [abstrusegoose.com]
By the way, it is interesting that you mention "opiate", are you aware of the use of opium in China in the beginning of the 20th century?
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Who was selling it to them? Google "opium war". The Chinese were trying to outlaw western opiates then, too
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I'm sure the leaders want TV to be an opiate and every other kind of drug-analogy to control the masses with. They probably feel the ratio of the opiate of entertainment was pushing the people in a suboptimal direction.
Oblig. Yakov Smirnoff (Score:4, Funny)
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You know what, since I'm blind drunk, I'm going to elaborate on my previous comment.
I live in China, I am an Australian expatriate, I visited the UK last week. Now, my countrymen several years ago built a Supermax facility called Katingal [wikipedia.org], since it is in Australia you may snidely refer to it as "le prison de le prison", it was a twisted labyrinth of CCTV cameras that was demolished soon after completion because of complaints from the inmates of it being "too much like driving along the A1" or "akin to visit
Just like in Star Trek (Score:3)
Someone in the Chinese Communist Party... (Score:5, Funny)
Someone in the CCP must have seen Jersey Shore, and decided to stop the trend before it's too late.
U.S. already far in advance (Score:2)
The last time I checked out the cable situation a few months ago, the U.S. has already scrubbed entertainment from broadcast and cable TV.
I am not sure if this was a patriotic move on the part of Hollywood to build a nation of young people who enjoyed more sunshine, or something imposed upon them by government officials afraid of citizens enjoying themselves too greatly as it would seem China has encountered. Either way, the U.S. beat ya' to it China!
State media is magic (Score:2)
More news, more education, and endless pony marathons.
China is different. Don't you get that? (Score:5, Insightful)
The very fundamental ideals of Chinese society place family and the greater community at higher priority than the individual's wants or needs. I suspect the vast majority of the Chinese people actually don't mind this. Those that do can certainly access media from elsewhere in the world -- technology is wide spread in China.
You really need to get the image of rice farms out of your heads.
Re:China is different. Don't you get that? (Score:4, Insightful)
State run TV means it's going to serve the priorities of the state. It's not a commercial enterprise out to win the greatest number of eyeballs, but a tool of the government first and the entertainment of the people second.
It's not unlike the emphasis the CBC placed on their programming mix when state-run TV was the only option in Canada. I saw a lot of documentaries, docu-drama histories, and educational shows when I was young.
Re:China is different. Don't you get that? (Score:4, Insightful)
if the vast majority didn't mind, they wouldn't need banning as they wouldn't have any viewers, while in fact these bans are a part of a war for viewers.
You are misinformed (Score:3)
If a vast majority was like how you say the highest rated shows would be educational and news. Yet it seems the highest rated shows are entertainment based.
Hmm, it seems that humans everywhere are the same .. who'd have thought?
Interesting... (Score:2)
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http://www.sesameworkshop.org/newsandevents/pressreleases/china_12152010 [sesameworkshop.org]
Already there bro, already there.
a trend toward low taste (Score:2)
I could not agree more.
Disclaimer: I have a dislike for shows, i'll have me some non-fiction documentaries or fiction comedy instead.
It's a sad, sad day (Score:4, Interesting)
...when you get better and more interesting TV programming in a communist country than in the free world.
I weep for humanity.
Like, WOW! A test cut for economic suicide. (Score:3)
There are 'way too many entry points to this discussion. The mass hypnosis of TV and movies undermined Japan's post-war program for a stronger Japan, by "Americanizing" Japanese values. American "reality" TV fosters a view of stupid, immoral Americans, but it also shows the vast difference in wealth between the two nations. This must be a threat to Chinese Government-approved values and economics. Now, 2/3 of the people in Chines TV may be "out-of-work" in whatever way a government-subsidized "production" can exist.
This puts one of China's leading-edge economic industries about where the United States was in 1921.
Re:FCC Should take note (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I'd rather have my idiots at home glued to the TV than out doing idiotic things...
Re:Lucky Chinese (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why don't you just turn your TV off?
he's not worried about himself watching the shows, it's more that he can't go and turn everyone elses tv's off so they wouldn't be entertained.
philosophical problem, really, what should we do with our time and if being entertained is bad or not. in China I wouldn't be too surprised if it was old school cadre of government channels that had lobbied for these slashes - to keep their tv more popular. it's not like they'd want real news on the telly.
Re:Lucky Chinese (Score:5, Interesting)
In England they have closed down most community centers, places that used to be used for playing football have been turned into office buildings or parking, nobody wants to go for a run as the air is polluted, the roads are so congested it makes cycling dangerous, travel is expensive, taking up a hobby like photography will probably get you arrested, and why bother learning an instrument as one day you will be able to karaoke to Robbie Williams on stage and become instantly famous without any of that icky hard work?
People do just turn off the television where I live in France. But then they have put in cycle lanes everywhere, cheap transport so 1e will take you anywhere, there are free football pitches, basketball courts, tennis (nearly free), and the council is always organising events and spectaces. One of the biggest days of the year is "Fete de la Musique" where everybody takes to the streets and plays an instrument or sings in any style they want. There is a web site "On va sortir" where anybody can spontaneously propose an event (poker night, dance lesson, walk in the countryside, whatever) and anybody can register to join in, which is very successful.
We could do worse than steal ideas from the neighbour across the pond.
Phillip.
Was that Future English? (Score:4, Funny)
You seem to have gotten there ahead of us.
Re: (Score:3)
> TV channels being a finite resource, a free market of channels couldn't exist, thus regulation is required.
Except for the fact that in most countries, terrestrial broadcast TV is now commercially-irrelevant, and satellite capacity is mostly a function of available capital to launch satellites and how big of a dish customers will tolerate (bigger dish = ability to shoehorn more satellites into a given arc of equatorial orbit). A 75-ohm coax cable can carry several hundred HD channels, and thousands of S