China's censors strike again

While Australians welcomed the New Year with entertainment options in abundance, over in China the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) chose January 1 as the official date to curb “excessive entertainment”.

State news agency Xinhua reported that satellite broadcasters in China have since slashed entertainment programming by two-thirds in accordance with the SARFT order.

Issued in October 2011, the order stipulates that each of the country’s 34 satellite channels show only two entertainment programs a week, with a maximum of 90 minutes entertainment content every day from 19:30 to 22:00.

The change was also accompanied by a ban on advertisements during TV dramas that last longer than 45 minutes. With 95% of China’s 1.3 billion people watching television, TV stations stand to lose enormous advertising revenues from the world’s largest number of television viewers.

The decisions come after the Communist Party’s Central Committee meeting in October last year and are aimed at promoting “socialist culture” according to Chinese authorities.

"Satellite channels have started to broadcast programmes that promote traditional virtues and socialist core values," SARFT said in a statement. "Radio and television are a mouthpiece of the party and the people - an important propaganda front in cultural thought."

Staples of networks all over the world, talent shows and reality TV, are some of the biggest victims of China’s censors. The incredibly popular Australian Idol style singing contest, Super Girl, which is produced by Hunan Satellite Television, was ordered off air in September last year.

According to the Xinhua news report the decision was made because the program was “too long” with episodes of the program lasting more than three hours.

However, a senior employee at Hunan told the BBC that the ban was imposed because of the success of Super Girl.

"It is widely believed that the real reason for the ban is that Hunan TV's talent programmes have been extremely popular," she said.

"Sometimes its audience can exceed that of the national broadcaster, something that causes unhappiness in SARFT. It's all down to interests."

In an extract from the SARFT decree, it was ordered that “Hosts should not flatter, flirt with or dig at each other”.

Alongside talent and reality TV, talk shows and emotional stories were also added to the list of restricted programmes after being viewed of “low taste”.

Because of the regulations the number of entertainment shows aired during prime time each week has dropped to 38 from 126.