Formats, Cultural Security and China's Going out Policy

Home , Eason Chan, Liu Huan, My Kitchen Rules, Na Ying, Sing My Song, Sing My Song (season 1)

JDTV 8 (1) pp. 65–80 Intellect Limited 2017

MICHAEL KEANE1 AND JOY DANJING ZHANG Curtin University

Formats, cultural security and China’s going out policy

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This article investigates the relationship between television formats, cultural secu- television formats rity and China’s ‘going out’ policy. Cultural security is a term used within Chinese Chinese television policy circles to advocate the strengthening of media and cultural pursuits with a cultural security view to making them effective instruments of national ‘soft power’, a term coined soft power by Joseph Nye (1990). Whereas ‘going out’ refers to Chinese business expansion going out internationally, in this article it describes media and cultural industries. We argue reality TV that these three elements constitute a new soft power coalition. Building on the existing demand, particularly among diasporic communities for historical dramas, 1. The author disclosed formatting of talent and reality shows allow Chinese cultural identity to be receipt of the following financial support reformed, remade, re-presented and modernized. The article provides background for the research, to the emergence of television formats, showing which kinds of programming authorship and/or passes both government scrutiny and the audience test. In the final section it looks publication of this article. Research at three examples of music talent shows, The Voice of China, I am a Singer, for this article was and Sing My Song that effectively function to reconnect domestic and diasporic funded through the Australian Research audiences. Council Discovery- Projects DP140101643 Willing Collaborators: Negotiating Change INTRODUCTION in East Asian Media Production. Since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the nation’s media has been on a heightened state of alert; at least that is the message emanating from the government. The government frequently cites ‘cultural security’ (wenhua anquan) as China’s strategy to resist cultural globalization.

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2. For more discussion of ‘Cultural security’ refers to the idea of strengthening and fortifying China’s Willing Collaborators, see special issue of media and cultural industries in order to build a stronger national founda- Media International tion: such fortification will allow China’s media and cultural enterprises to Australia, no 159 (2016). compete more successfully with foreign companies. Cultural security encour- ages China’s media industries to enter into collaboration with outsiders, the end result being transfers of ideas, skill and talent into China. In looking more closely at the industrial logic behind cultural security measures this article examines the relationship between television formats and China’s ‘going out’ (zou chuqu) policy, sometimes referred to as ‘going global’. It argues that know-how of formatting has transformed the landscape of Chinese television, allowing it to regionalize, most notably within the Asia-Pacific. In the process many formatted shows serve as a vehicle of ‘cultural soft power’, a term derived from Joseph Nye’s soft power concept (Nye 1990) but which in recent times has been re-versioned in China as ‘strong cultural power’ (wenhua qiangguo). Over the past few years ‘made-in-China’ formats have taken market share in regional markets. Yet these formats are not created in China. These are offspring, sometimes illegitimate, ‘second generation’ formats (Keane and Zhang 2016). The creative inspiration of foreign format producers is appropri- ated by more ‘risk averse’ Chinese media companies, echoing Jean Chalaby’s assertion that ‘The format industry rests on a compelling premise: the willing- ness of broadcasters to pay for the outsourcing of risk’ (2016: 12, original emphasis). Many ‘conceived abroad’ formats are now used to good advantage to revitalize Chinese media and to bring regional culture, celebrities, songwriters, performers and artists into China’s rapidly expanding media market, which in turn contributes to the professionalization of Chinese media. In doing so these ‘willing collaborators’2 contribute to the propagation of a ‘Mainland- inflected’ Chinese identity. The entry of imported formats in mainland China has been addressed by a number of studies in English over the past two decades (Keane 2002, 2002a, 2004; Keane et al. 2007; Fung and Zhang 2011; Zhang and Fung 2014; de Burgh et al. 2011). Other studies have examined elements of reality television and fandom; for instance, studies of Hunan Satellite TV’s Supergirls, itself a clone of Pop Idol (Meng 2009; Yang 2009; Huang 2014; Wu 2014) or Jiangsu Satellite’s If You Are the One (Kong 2013). More recently Lewis et al. have looked at reality-style television shows from the perspective of educating people about modern lifestyle choices (Lewis et al. 2012, 2016) Formats have already made Chinese television more contemporary, more entertaining and more diverse, shifting the emphasis from serialized re-enactments of history featuring massive sets, casts of thousands and designated villains, towards unscripted television with amateur performers. Because of their success, entertainment shows have generated predictable critical commentary from elite scholars, pundits and political conservatives. Such formats mediate between the sacredness of traditional culture, inher- ent in enactments of history, and the ‘profanity’ of popular culture (Groys 2014), the latter a composite of global, East Asian and Chinese vernacular culture. We begin our investigation with a brief overview of the Chinese television system as it is today, noting the Chinese government’s obsession with exporting its culture, in this case television programmes. Nothing could be more resolute than the state’s desire to elevate its global cultural presence

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(see Li W. 2016; Li H. 2016). Since 2007, when President Hu Jintao launched a soft power crusade, an inordinate amount of money, reportedly somewhere between US$7–10 billion, has been allocated to facilitate Chinese culture to ‘go out’ (zou chuqu) (Shambaugh 2013; Keane 2015). This ‘going out’ is intended to challenge the flow of foreign content ‘coming in’, effectively main- taining China’s cultural security (wenhua anquan). Importantly from a political perspective, as Wanning Sun (2015) notes, it is meant to disseminate positive messages of China, and by doing so assist Chinese media (and culture) to be more competitive on the global stage. However, as this article will show, because the language of broadcast is mandarin Chinese, the substantive audience is the Chinese Diaspora. In effect, this represents a partial manifestation of cultural soft power; that is, this content effectively ‘reconnects’ with people of Chinese heritage living overseas – in many cases an audience yearning for cultural maintenance – rather than ‘connecting’ with the so-called ‘foreign’ (laowai) viewer. In showing the persistence of international media ‘coming in’, the next section illustrates how foreign formats have entered the highly protected market, precipitating a ‘format fever’, and how in late 2013 the Chinese media regulator, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (hereafter SAPPRFT) moved to implement restrictions on the number of formats that could be imported. As a result of this restriction many buyers looked to South Korea, which had begun to pitch new content and ideas to the Chinese market. The Koreans, already making cultural inroads into China through the Korean Wave (Jin 2016; Yecies et al. 2011), saw this as a great opportunity. As we show, however, national security is linked to cultural security: in July 2016, the Chinese government issued threats to ban Korean media and celebrities in response to South Korea’s military engagement with the United States (Frater 2016). The third section introduces several international formats that have made the transition into China and discusses which genres work in China, noting how winner-take-all formats have generally failed the ‘cultural test’, while those emphasizing family, and family values, have appeased the regulators and won over the market. Returning to the theme of soft power, the final section looks briefly at how the Chinese industry has used formatting to expand its global and regional presence, in the process reconnecting (Keane 2016) with estranged overseas audiences. A point we wish to emphasize is that China’s international reputation as a locus of Asian pop culture (Chua 2012) is enhanced by the inflow of ideas from East Asia, with many creative teams now moving to the Mainland. We choose three examples to illustrate this phenomenon of reconnecting: The Voice of China (Netherlands), I am a Singer (South Korea) and Zhongguo hao gequ (Sing My Song) (China). The key point we wish to emphasize is that such formats appeal to the audience because they are essentially pan-Asian; they utilize participants from Greater China to create an impression of a creative China, an idea that in years past would have seemed oxymoronic. The difference with Sing My Song, however, is that it is a created-in-China format, spun off from the Voice of China.

CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN CHINESE TELEVISION Before turning to some notable examples of imported formats it is worth considering characteristics of the media environment in which they have

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taken root. It is undeniable that the Chinese television industry is at a cross- roads. Despite efforts by the Party-state and its various regulatory institu- tions to manage content, global transformations in production, distribution and viewing have impacted on the world’s largest media marketplace. Both terrestrial and digital platforms compete for audience attention with youth demographics drawn to the online world. Most of the successful entertainment shows have an online presence; some programmes are made for online distribution, and later on sold to terrestrial or satellite stations. In this new competitive environment one finds greater exploration of formats and genres than at any time in the past, and with this, greater opportunities for ‘foreign’ format traders. Since China opened its doors to the rest of the world in 1978 television has changed in many ways. A visitor to China flicking the channels will immedi- ately feel they are watching something recognizable. Of course there is the perennial television serial, offering new versions of the Chinese revolution, featuring a healthy quota of anti-Japanese sentiment for the older generations, or melodramatic stories of modern families, usually with a central role for the mother-in-law. News and current affairs programming retains a pedagogi- cal mode of address, reconciling the state of the economy with the urgency of reforms and problems besetting capitalist economies. More comparable with international schedules is format television. From China’s Got Talent to Survivor Games with Bear Grylls (both airing on Shanghai’s Dragon TV), formats are both entertainment-based and pedagogic, that is they teach people lessons about how to live in a modern changing world (Lewis et al. 2016). Furthermore, they are eroding the long-standing dominance of TV drama serials (Zhu et al. 2008) in primetime. One reason for the success of reality-based formats in particular is satellite channels, now numbering over 30, which have a mandate to broadcast to the whole nation. Most extend their programmes beyond the Mainland to Chinese communities worldwide who can access in real time via IPTV, satellite dishes or online platforms (Keane 2016). Formatted shows, especially talent competitions, help build audiences across the diaspora while encouraging overseas Chinese to participate. There is a certain irony in this new expanded landscape. For years the Chinese government erected quotas to defend the Chinese television industry from competition and Chinese viewers from unhealthy media effects: in October 1983 an ‘anti-spiritual pollution’ campaign (fan jingshen wuran yundong), was launched to eradicate the copying of foreign styles and the spread of liberal ideas. While television production commercialized consid- erably in the 1990s regulators remained extremely vigilant about unscripted genres, what we generally construe as factual television, talk shows and reality formats. Narrative content could be managed; that is, scripts need to be read and approved by censors before a production is greenlighted. Under the system that dominated media production programmes during that period had to follow approved forms: for instance, genres were heavily restricted in television drama, mostly favouring historical re-enactments. Even today, aside from costume dramas, television drama production in Mainland China is over-represented by stories about the revolution against Japanese imperialism or contemporary modern melodramas dominated by mother-in-law characters. For this reason Chinese television serials have not travelled as well as those made in South Korea and Hong Kong. From 2008 to 2011 imports of drama were three times that of exports, with the exception of 2009 when imports of foreign dramas were seven times that of exports (Jin 2015: 241).

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Globalization and international flows of media have changed the nature of television production, and with this new concerns about cultural imperialism have emerged. International exchange of television programs in the past was premised on ‘national products’, in other words, finished content that originated in one country, be it a television series produced in Hollywood or a telenovela in Mexico. Foreign content came into China from various countries in the mid-1980s and 1990s, before the government acted to restrict the tide by establishing quotas (Keane 2015). Within a few years of China joining the WTO in 2001 the political emphasis had turned to ‘going out’, a concerted effort to assist Chinese media to internationalize. Meanwhile, the need to liberalize markets in strategic sectors, including advertising and cinema, led to zealous debates about cultural sovereignty. The most vocal proponent was Hu Huilin from Shanghai Jiaotong University. Hu’s initial intervention, a treatize on ‘cultural security’ and globalization, was published in February 2000. Then on 12 August 2003 Chinese President Hu Jintao raised the topic of ‘Ensuring National Cultural Security’ (quebao wenhua anquan) to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CCP during the seventh central collective study meeting. In the following Fourth and Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee, cultural security was included in a package of ‘security measures’: namely political security, economic security and information security. The relationship between soft power and cultural security is correlative. The original concept of ‘soft power’ derived from the work of the political scientist Joseph Nye (1990), referring primarily to cultural diplomacy, which is essentially transmission of positive messages about a nation, namely through political values, foreign policies and culture. Culture forms part of this conceptual package, where it is viewed as ‘attractive’. As Terry Flew (2016) argues, from the sender’s perspective, Nye’s soft power model presupposes a net positive effect in contrast to cultural imperialism (Schiller 1991), which assumes that certain kinds of media representations exert a negative influence or force. When they are delivered by transnational corporations, the cultural force (in some cases ‘imperialism’) becomes apparent, and this has in turn resulted in barriers, quotas and censorship in China. The consolidation of China’s fragmented media into ‘groupings’ (jituan) in the mid- to late 1990s was part of this thinking. Cultural security entailed the ‘reform of the cultural system’ (wenhua tizhi gaige); this reform was aimed at correcting perceived weaknesses such as weak cultural consumption, lack of demand, small scale of production, regional inequality, and lack of creativity and innovation, all of which impacted on building international competitiveness (Xiao 2015). Following accession to the WTO in 2001, cultural industry development received the green light: this came with massive amounts of state funding to broadcasters such as CCTV (Keane 2015). Internationalization mechanisms included export facilitation of government approved film, documentary, news programmes, animation and TV; overseas filming and the positioning of international faces in Chinese audio- visual content; co-production in film and documentary; online platforms; and strategic investments in overseas cultural and media companies (Li H. 2016). At the same time, however, foreign forces, while constrained by quotas, found new ways to enter the market thanks to relaxations pertaining to collabora- tions with foreign media. In the film industry co-productions geared up and in television formats multiplied in numbers. Formats, we will argue, have become a new mechanism for China’s media to gear up and go global.

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THE FORMAT TIDE BREAKS In the television industry formatting has become the essential model of transcultural production. In China many inputs, including cultural labour and management, have come from Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. Many producers are enticed to move to China for work. Korean producers, in particular Shin Jung-soo (I am Singer) and Kang Gung (Where Are We Going Dad?) have made no secret of their intentions to move their careers to China (Park 2016). Formats have further served to weaken the adminis- trative boundaries that pertained to Chinese television production during the 1980s and 1990s with satellite television stations, with their greater audience reach, now paying the highest prices for new shows. Meanwhile, increasing engagements with East Asian collaborators have expanded the Chinese media sphere, drawing Greater China into a new union with the motherland (see below). While transnational projects are not confined to East Asia, the fact of East Asian cultural proximity (Straubhaar 1991) assures that these forms of collaboration are more likely to ‘fit’ the Chinese landscape than western media alliances. The history of formats in China has been discussed in detail elsewhere (Keane 2015). However, because of the important role played by the East Asian television market in introducing new formats into China a brief summary is necessary. A few ‘legitimate’ formats had entered the Chinese market from Japan in the early 2000s. Japan’s format strategy was necessary because of the problem of getting its content into Asia due to prohibitions, quotas, and in many regions lingering associations with wartime aggression (Iwabuchi 2004). Beijing TV licensed a Japanese game show, Happy Family Plan, from Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) in 2002, renaming their version mengxiang chengzhen (Dreams Come True). Representing an early version of the kinds of reality formats that would fascinate Chinese viewers a decade later, Dreams Come True involved a family working together to overcome a challenge. It was not long before other stations were cashing in on the success of the original. Stations in Sichuan and Zhejiang provinces even used the same title. TBS issued a complaint to the Chinese media regulator, SARFT and to the Ministry of Culture, seeking to control this ‘infringement’. However, the most they could hope for was trademark protection of their logo and their name (Interview with producer July 2004). Formats entered China in the early 2000s most notably via the south- ern broadcaster Hunan Satellite TV (HSTV), which was looking for ways to diversify into contemporary entertainment. At the time HSTV was not buying the format license but rather localizing, taking advantage of the lack of international scrutiny. Within a relatively short period of time other channels were cloning Hunan’s successes. Things changed after the breakout success of Hunan Satellite TV’s (HSTV) chaoji nüsheng (Supergirls) in 2005, a copy of Fremantle’s Pop Idol. HSTV was keen to break the shackles of dependency on content rulings emanating from SAPPRFT (at the time called SARFT). In an attempt to learn more about the television market and programming strategies in Europe and North America a delegation visited the United Kingdom in 2005 (de Burgh et al. 2011). Subsequent meetings between HSTV manag- ers and Fremantle executives ensued and HSTV led the way in procuring licensed formats from Europe. This notes the real beginning of the foreign format tide. Programmes that found their way into Hunan’s repertoire included wudong qiji (Strictly Come Dancing) and Zhongguo zui qiang yin (X Factor China),

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the latter originally produced for the north-eastern entity Liaoning Satellite TV. The producer of X Factor China was Enlight Media, China’s largest private producer of television content (Keane 2015). In 2011, Enlight would be accepted as the first Chinese member of FRAPA (the Netherlands-based Formats Recognition and Protection Agency) in 2011. In accepting member- ship, the company’s vice-president, Su Ming admitted that respect for IP rights ‘is not really strong in China’ (Su, cited in Frapa 2011). Enlight, like Hunan Satellite TV, agreed to champion the recognition of IP and legal rights in China. Formats had become a legitimate business strategy and a number of Chinese channels were buying them without too much consideration for their localization potential. A wave of formatting ensued; although some were unlicensed ‘copycats’, many were legitimate, echoing the frenzy of cultural borrowing. The list of titles demonstrates the predilection for interbreeding and cloning. By 2013, Chinese satellite channels were screening thirteen different music talent shows at the same time, most based on imported formats. These included Zhejiang Satellite TV’s Zhongguo hao shengyin (The Voice of China), Dragon TV’s Zhongguo meng zhi sheng (Chinese Idol), Hunan Satellite TV’s Zhongguo zui qiang yin (X Factor) and kuaile nansheng (Happy Boys), Hubei Satellite TV’s wode Zhongguo xing (Superstar China), Tianjin Satellite TV’s tianxia wushuang (Copycat Singers), Anhui Satellite TV’s wo wei ge kuang (Mad for Music), Shandong Satellite TV’s Zhongguo xing liliang (Pop Star) and Jiangxi Satellite TV’s Zhongguo hong ge hui (Sing Red Song of China) (Keane 2015). In that year four of these satellite channels, Hunan, Zhejiang, Dragon and Jiangsu Satellite TV, imported a total of 21 music and dance formats from the Netherlands, Britain, United States, Korea and Spain. One of the most successful was The Voice of China, which we discuss below. In October 2013, SAPPRFT announced a ‘one format policy’ (Keane and Zhang 2016), which imposed a singular limit on the number of overseas formats a channel could buy each year. Furthermore, these imported formats shows could not be broadcast during primetime (19:30 to 22:30), the only exception allowed was one music talent show per channel, subject to approval by SAPPRFT. The regulation was designed to force producers away from purchasing unhealthy western formats, presumably meaning those that celebrated excessive competition. Of course, competition was permissible if it could be shown to be pedagogic. One of the formats that fitted the new regime is zuiqiang danao (The Brain), a competition to identify people with incredible memory retention skills rather than the kind of strategic cleverness on display in ‘winner takes all’ shows. Interestingly, the government endorses shows like The Brain as contributing to science and technology, its ‘innovative nation’ strategy. Whether restrictions on overseas formats constitutes good or bad policy is probably not the point. All television programming needs to manage the expectations of the government in regard to appropriate moral content, including that of its stars. A case is a reality kung fu competition pitched by Star China Media, the company behind the successful shows Voice of China and Sing My Song (Keane 2015). Kung fu, now embedded in global pop and film culture, is seen as a potential avenue to develop a created-in- China format for international distribution. Unfortunately, plans for this ‘created-in-China’ format were put on hold, when the son of Jackie Chan, one of the judges, was convicted on a drug charge and jailed in China for six months.

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3. Interview with TRANSLATING AND BORROWING FORMATS executive of international television More recently Chinese television stations have begun to understand the company based in logic and rules of formatting. Whereas only an average of two foreign China dealing in formats (Anon. 2014). formats made it into China between 2006 and 2009, by 2010 the number had jumped to ten; in 2011 it doubled (Wang, cited in ‘new member profile Enlight Media’). While there was a frenzy of buying, obviously some formats failed the cultural test. Along with the ubiquitous talent show, dating shows fared well, the front runner being feicheng wurao (If You Are the One), initially devised by the Seven Network in Australia as Taken Out before being acquired by Fremantle Media and rebranded as Take Me Out. Interestingly, the concept of twenty women adjudicating on the potential mating qualities of one male entails a high degree of humiliation, something that one might feel is inappropriate in China, considering the criticism directed at foreign formats like Survivor (Keane et al. 2007). In December 2009, the format licence was bought by Hunan Satellite TV, which produced its version, only to be outgunned by a rival satellite broadcaster, Jiangsu Satellite TV (JSTV), whose clone, If You Are the One, captured the market. The success of this show, and other family-oriented formats including Where Are We Going Dad? (Hunan Satellite TV) testify to the popularity of the genre known as qinggan tixian zhenren xiu (‘Parenting experimental reality show’). Where Are We Going Dad? is a South Korean format that featured B-list male celebrities and their offspring bonding, usually in exotic locations. The show drew large audiences for its first three seasons before suffering from a SAPPRFT edict in 2016 that banned the presentation of children on television in prime time (Keane and Zhang 2016). Globally one of the most successful formats is the chef cook-off challenge, epitomized by the UK’s Masterchef or more recently The Great British Bake Off. Well-travelled variations include My Kitchen Rules, Kitchen Nightmares, and Iron Chef, the last of these coming from Japan as early as 1993. Indeed, the success of Iron Chef in Japan and its cult status in a number of countries raises the question of why similar cooking shows have failed to capture attention in China. As discussed in Keane (2015), cultural differences play a role: in the west a celebrity chef has a high social status and earns a high income whereas a chef is just a ‘cook’ in China; he or she is not expected to advance up the social rankings. Another cultural difference is that western food normally has three courses: entree, main and dessert whereas Chinese dishes appear together, sometimes ten at the same time. For the Chinese audience, habitu- ated to Chinese food preparation and presentation, a concept gap exists. Winner-take-all shows have struggled, perhaps something to do with a Confucian sensibility of not wanting to take humiliate people, although as mentioned above If You Are the One manages to overcome this taboo. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire had taken Hong Kong and Singapore by storm (Fung 2004; Lim 2004). The format owners, Celador, then approached programme buyers at CCTV who declined the format, claiming the programme had an unhealthy focus on individualism. One of the paradoxes is that Chinese people like to dream about getting rich but are necessarily not drawn to see other people hitting the jackpot on television.3 Success takes different forms in China: it’s the ‘deserving’ that need to be rewarded, not just clever types (interview with producer, Beijing 2014). A version was made by CCTV, more or less a direct clone, called The Dictionary of Happiness, however (see Keane 2004, 2015).

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While ‘profane’ (Groys 2014) competition-style reality shows have failed 4. The lead author was approached by a to make a mark on traditional television, there is more hope for success in lawyer for Endemol the online sphere where greater experimentation is allowable. Foreign format while doing fieldwork creators and distributors, perhaps sensing they are being squeezed by regula- in Beijing in relation to advice about tions and more recently by the surge of Korean formats are rapidly negotiat- how to respond ing projects with online media companies. The online communications media to this perceived giants in China, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, known collectively at BAT, have infringement. engaged in corporate cannibalization of online sites IQiyi, Youku Tudou and Sohu.com, respectively. Tencent, based in Shenzhen, has commissioned a quiz format for its streaming video site Tencent Video (v.qq.com) called Are You Normal?, originally created by Zoo productions/all3media. People are polled on various behaviours in relation to topics that are usually deemed sensitive such as checking one’s partners’ mobile phone, or keeping quiet when one is sexually harassed. They are then benchmarked as to their ‘normality’. Another experiment in progress is the Chinese version of Big Brother, now called Roommate Together, a partnership between Endemol and Youku Tudou, which is now under the majority ownership of Alibaba. This is not the first time, however, that the Big Brother format has appeared in China. An unlicensed version, made by Hunan Satellite TV called Perfect Holiday surfaced briefly almost a decade ago.4 More associated with the profane realm of pop culture, Roommate Together (with know-how from Endemol), is likely to feature more wholesome cohabiting practices that one observes in Big Brother Houses elsewhere; that is, if the project navigates the recent regulatory uncer- tainty surrounding imported formats.

THE PAN-ASIAN TALENT SPHERE Finally, in order to illustrate the role that formats play in China’s soft power ambitions, we look briefly at two talent formats, the Voice of China, and I am a Singer. Both are imported and have made an impression; both have different cultural origins, the Netherlands and South Korea respectively. What is most interesting about these formats, aside from their unprecedented success is the fact that they now celebrate Chinese cultural ascendency, drawing performers from the Mainland, Greater China, South East Asia, and the Chinese Diaspora into a grand spectacle. They are second generation formats, reinventing them- selves and reaching out to the region, if not the world. The overseas reception of these shows in turn reinforces a sense of Chinese identity, in the process reconstituting and ‘reconnecting’ Chinese soft power in the Chinese Diaspora (Keane 2016). Zhongguo hao shengyin (The Voice of China) premiered in 2012 and by the time of writing had seen four seasons, all garnering massive audience support. Broadcast on Zhejiang Satellite TV to a national audience and streamed on Tencent’s online platform, the Chinese format accurately replicated other international ‘Voices’, featuring a four person judging panel made up of respected singers including Na Ying, Jay Chou and Wang Feng, the latter representing China’s rock music community. Produced by Star China Media (Canxing), the show’s format was licensed from Talpa Global, the Dutch originator and copyright holder. In 2015 Talpa and SCM became embroiled in a custody battle with the former asking for unpaid licence fees reportedly amounting to US$ 462,000 (RMB 3,000,000) (Anon. 2016). The issue is the renewal of the contract. The Dutch company has asked for higher licence fees with the Chinese side digging its heels in and driving the price down. The

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end result is that entering its fifth season the show’s producers reappropriated the format as China Super Voice, although the original translation Zhongguo hao shengyin is maintained. The producers have launched auditions overseas, from Australia to Europe, seeking contestants to compete. Tapping into the Diaspora in this way provides a way to maximize coverage as well as ensure that they are fulfilling the state’s obligations of ‘going out’. The influence of Voice extends beyond the Mainland: in 2015 a contestant from Thailand called Vanutsaya Visetkul, was even described as the reincarnation of 1980s legend Teresa Teng (Tong 2015). Meanwhile Endemol have reportedly teamed up with another Zhejiang-based Chinese media company Zhejiang Tange to produce another slate of reality shows, including Seasons 5–8 of the Voice of China, the original that is (Brzeski 2016). Another music format, wo shi geshou (I am a Singer) is made by Hunan Satellite TV, based on a South Korean format. I Am a Singer (2011–2016) was the first Korean format purchased by Hunan Satellite from the South Korean broadcaster MBC. The programme differs from the Voice in that the seven singers chosen are already established performers. As in most formats there is an elimination process, here determined by a selected audience. The level of live performance and music quality is usually high. I am a Singer has achieved remarkable success and in some respects replicates a kind of Chinese Eurovision Song Contest. Both the jury and singing contestants are from different countries of East Asia. In the recent past China has looked to its ‘cool’ neighbours Japan and South Korea for pop culture. It now has a powerful attraction of its own, even though the format comes via Korea. Qian Wang and Jeroen de Kloet (2016) write about this new pan-Asian phenomenon. Being on I am a Singer provides an opportunity to launch or relaunch one’s career in the Mainland. In the third season (2015), the winner was Han Hong, a singer with a Tibetan background who was already well known in China. She won by performing a duet with Hong Kong pop idol Eason Chan. Whereas talent shows like The Voice function as a possible stepping stone towards a music career, determined by judges, the audience in I am a Singer adjudicates if the singer is worthy of stardom. As Wang and de Kloet (2016) note, the show illustrates the new regionalization of pop culture: that is, it takes a Hong Kong pop star, a Tibetan singer, a Korean format and a provin- cial satellite TV channel to produce a national winner. I am Singer’s success in Taiwan is noteworthy, where ‘CTiTV and ETTV abridged their regular news programming to make room for the first season finale’ (Zhao 2016: 56). Like The Voice of China this second generation format is functioning as a means of drawing audiences in Asia to watch Chinese programming, now available on a myriad on online platforms including YouTube. In this way we argue that formats are ‘reconnecting’ people in the Diaspora to Chinese culture (Keane 2016).

OPENING DOORS, NEW BEGINNINGS Formats have opened the door for new entertainment products and diversi- fied genres. As mentioned above, excessive reliance on overseas formats has caused palpitations among the regulators, leading to restrictions, edicts, and calls for China to develop its own format talent. In 2014, the annual Sichuan TV Festival, in partnership with Shixi Media jointly initiated a TV format competition. Essentially a reality format competition in itself, the finalists

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receive support from Shixi Media, an aspiring domestic format company, in taking their product to market. Scoring for this competition comes from juries made up of satellite TV directors and industry experts. To date created-in-China formats have been conspicuous by their absence. One Chinese format that has made some ground in regional and even international markets is a talent competition called Zhongguo hao gequ (Sing My Song) co-developed and produced by Canxing media, the company responsible for the Voice of China. Sing My Song premiered on January 3 2014 on CCTV-3, the Arts and Entertainment channel. The format of Sing My Song involves a search for the best original songs in the nation. Four of the Chinese music industry’s most accomplished singer-songwriters, including Liu Huan and the Taiwanese musician Zhou Huajie, share their experiences and expertise as producers-judges, providing feedback and guidance to the contestants. Sing My Song moreover takes the talent show genre in a nationalistic direction, highlighting the musical creativity of the contestants, in contrast to The Voice and similar talent identifications shows which are fundamentally concerned with the familiar, that is, cover versions. International contestants are sought to provide evidence that Chinese soft power is a potent rising force. In April 2014, a British version of Sing My Song was announced. The show is distributed by ITV Studios in the United Kingdom, and is currently pitched to Vietnam, which in the past two years has picked up a number of international formats including The Voice. With this success in hand, the national broadcaster CCTV is now able to claim that one of its programmes is ‘going out’, a key performance indicator required by the central government. While the international version of the Chinese kung fu reality show mentioned earlier may eventually overcome its problems with its star, for now, China’s contender in the format trade wars for now is Sing my Song. In this way formats are helping to operationalize a new cultural force, both domestically and internationally. Building on the existing demand, particularly among diasporic communities for historical dramas, a wave of talent and reality shows is allowing Chinese cultural identity to be reformed, remade, re-presented and modernized. With the insertion of traditional Chinese elements in such programmes, and by bringing in willing participants from outside the Mainland, including participants and celebrities of Chinese heritage, national identity is reinvigorated, and ‘cultural power’ is generated. The ‘going out’ of Chinese culture is now established on multiple fronts. These measures include the penetration of Chinese media companies into foreign territories – notably Wanda’s acquisition of AMC cinema chains in the United States, and a recent surge in China-foreign cinematic co-productions activities. Second generation offerings like The Voice of China and I am Singer carry Chinese messages abroad; in the process they provide audiences abroad with modern, albeit government sanctioned version of China. In short, this article has argued that formats, previously seen by the government as a threat to cultural security and traditional Chinese values, are now providing an alternative way to take Chinese culture to the world. The journey began with diasporic audiences tuned in via satellite services and set-top boxes; in the future there is the potential for made-in-China formats to impact on Asian television schedules especially as the content and the style becomes more pan-Asian. The cases mentioned above demon- strate this evolving process of reconnecting Chinese culture and building new audiences.

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SUGGESTED CITATION Keane, M. and Zhang, J. D. (2017), ‘Formats, cultural security and China’s going out policy’, International Journal of Digital Television, 8: 1, pp. 65–80, doi: 10.1386/jdtv.8.1.65_1

CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS Michael Keane is Professor of Chinese Media and Cultural Studies at Curtin University. Michael’s key research interests are digital transformation in China; East Asian cultural and media policy; and creative industries and cultural export strategies in China and East Asia. Contact: Professor of Chinese Media and Cultural Studies, Centre for Culture and Technology, Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth WA 6845, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]

Danjing Zhang (Joy) is from Shanghai. In 2015 she completed her Ph.D. on Chinese urban youth, their networks and social media platforms. Her research interests are cultural consumption, urban youth’s digital engagement and community activities’ crowdfunding in China.

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Contact: Unit 1, 348A Mill Point Rd, South Perth, WA 6151, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]

Michael Keane and Joy Danjing Zhang have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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