CCTV Spring Festival Gala
The CCTV Spring Festival Gala (Chinese: 中央 电视台 春节 联欢晚会; abbreviation: 央视 春晚; further abbreviation: 春晚 / chūnwǎn /) is a gala organized by China Central Television (CCTV) to celebrate the Chinese New Year . It is held annually on Chinese New Year's Eve and broadcast live worldwide by radio and on the Internet. According to the Guinness Book of Records, with around 700 million viewers, it is the TV show with the most viewers in the world. It is also one of the most influential programs in Chinese culture.
history
The CCTV Spring Festival Gala can be traced back to a film production series entitled "Great Spring Festival Celebration" (Chinese: 春节 大 联欢), which premiered in 1956. It was commissioned by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, which broadcast the films in cinemas across China. Since only a few Chinese households owned a television until the 1980s - in 1979, for example, there were only 4.85 million televisions in the whole of mainland China - the gala only became a mass-cultural television phenomenon afterwards. The first gala that was broadcast on television was the "CCTV Spring Festival Gala 1983" (also the First Gala of the Year of the Pig ). Since then, the broadcast has been running live every year on New Year's Eve on the Chinese calendar from 8:00 p.m. (Beijing time UTC + 8). It ends in the first hour of the new year.
Transmission channel
Within the Chinese area, this gala is broadcast live by various channels and via the Internet through several video portals, for example Youku , Tencent QQ , IQiyi . Outside of China, live broadcasts will also take place via YouTube, Twitter (@CCTV_America), Google+ (CCTV News). The gala will also be televised in the Southeast Asian countries of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia with a high Chinese population.
Programs and Stars
Various program genres are presented on the gala stage - including skits , singing, dance, xiangsheng , magic , Chinese operas , Kung Fu show, juggling.
Thousands of people are employed for the annual five-hour gala. Singers, actors, comedians, athletes, Taikonauts, models and international award winners are invited as guests. Among the gala stars were z. B. The First Lady Peng Liyuan (28 times), movie stars like Jackie Chan (7 times), Zhang Ziyi (3 times), singers like Jay Chou (5 times), Andy Lau (5 times), Song Zuying (24 times) , Liu Huan (3 times), comedians like Zhao Benshan (21 times), Song Dandan (10 times), Feng Gong (32 times). Some foreign stars like Celine Dion , Sophie Marceau or Lee Min-ho etc. also took part.
Development and criticism
Watching the Spring Festival Gala is almost as part of the New Year's Eve tradition in most Chinese families as the opulent dinner. It offers entertainment during and after meals and its decades of persistence have led to an emotional connection.
The story of the Spring Festival Gala shows the cultural development of the People's Republic like in a nutshell. Prof. Zhao Zizhong from the Chinese University of Communication highlighted the cultural significance of the gala in a comment.
Political elements and strict controls
Since its inception, the gala has been more or less political each year. The programs should be in line with the political orientation of the state government. The officials of the Ministry of Culture form a commission during the preparation of the gala in order to politically review the programs to be implemented. In particular, skits and xiangsheng , which ironically and mockingly express jokes about politics and society, are strictly controlled.
advertising
Because of the large number of spectators, the gala is also associated with great economic interests. The product placements cause dissatisfaction among many viewers.
Ban on kuso
Since the spread of the internet, it has been part of many Chinese internet users to criticize the gala with satirical and parodic elements after watching the gala. The term Kuso was coined for this in East Asia , but the phenomenon itself is also known in the West. For the first time, negative posts by users on Weibo were deleted and censored in 2017 . In 2018, control became even stronger.
Other spring festival galas
In addition to CCTV, almost every provincial television station also offers an annual Spring Festival gala. Due to the strong influence of CCTV, however, no other gala may be broadcast on New Year's Eve. These “provincial galas” usually take place on the 23rd, 24th, 28th or 29th of the last month or on New Year's Day of the Chinese calendar.
CCTV has also been offering annually on 23.12 since 2011. of the Chinese calendar, a web gala in which stars and Internet users can sing and interact live together via the Internet. In the CCTV Web Gala 2019 (on January 28, 2019) signals were transported for the first time using 5G technologies and an AI moderator was used.
They say: "Where there are Chinese, there are Spring Festival Galas". This refers to the diverse galas that are organized by overseas Chinese in many cities around the world. They not only offer the Chinese the common spring festival celebration outside of their homeland, but also convey Chinese culture to the local people. A local student gala is held annually in almost every university town in Germany.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bloomberg: The World's Most-Watched Television Show Airs Tonight. the Time, accessed February 15, 2018 .
- ↑ not specified: 1983 年前 的 春晚. In: 青岛 全 搜 电子 报. Retrieved January 25, 2017 (Chinese).
- ↑ 【专家 谈】 东西 南北 看 春晚 _ 文化 _ 光明网. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
- ↑ 陈 念 千: 網絡 時代 的 中國 春晚 ： 從 全民 吐槽 到 禁止 評分. Initium Media, February 3, 2017, accessed January 27, 2019 (Chinese).
- ↑ Every year again! - "Happy Chinese New Year" in Berlin - Radio China International. Accessed January 27, 2019 .