Foreign Introduced Reality Television in China’s Market A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Drexel University by Yiyan He in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Television Management Spring 2013 ii © Copyright 2013 Yiyan He Reserved iii Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge and express the deepest appreciation to my committee chair and my program director, Albert Tedesco, who has extensive experience in television and communication field and gives me much support and advice during my years in Drexel University. I cannot thank him enough for his wisdom and support. Many thanks to my thesis advisor, Lydia Timmins who gives me valuable advice regarding the thesis. Without her guidance and help, the thesis would not have been possible. I would like to express my gratitude to all professors of the TV Management program, who give me insights to the different American and Chinese television system and industry. A thank you to my colleagues during my internship at Shanghai Media Group, who let me join the production team of the Amazing Race: China Rush and gain lots of information for the thesis preparation. I also would like to thank my colleagues and supervisors from CNN New York, who brought me into the real American cable network’s production. To my loving parents, thank you for believing in me and your support and encouragement. To my friends, thank you for all your comfort and support. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments.............................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................... vii Abstract ............................................................................................................ viii Chapter One: Introduction ................................................................................ 11 1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 11 1.2 Statement of the Problem .................................................................... 17 1.3 Purpose of the Study ........................................................................... 18 1.4 Research Questions ............................................................................. 20 1.5 Significance to the Field ..................................................................... 20 Chapter Two: Review of the Literature............................................................. 22 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 22 2.2 Body of the Review ............................................................................ 23 2.2.1 China’s Television Market Research ........................................ 23 2.2.2 Broadcast Structure Research .................................................. 28 2.2.3 Culture behind the Reality TV and Co-producing Culture ...... 32 2.3 Chapter Summary ............................................................................... 37 Chapter Three: Methods ................................................................................... 38 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 38 3.2 China’s Got Talent .............................................................................. 40 3.3 The Amazing Race: China Rush ......................................................... 48 3.4 The Voice of China.............................................................................. 51 Chapter Four: Results ....................................................................................... 56 4.1 Research Question One ....................................................................... 56 4.1.1 The Awareness of Copyrights .................................................. 56 4.1.2 More Attention to Good Programs of Other Countries’ Markets ........................................................................................................... 57 4.2 Research Question Two ...................................................................... 59 4.2.1 The Potential Huge Market ...................................................... 59 4.2.2 Franchise and Derivative Income ............................................ 60 4.2.3 Low Production Cost ............................................................... 60 4.3 Research Question Three .................................................................... 61 4.3.1 Regulations and Rules.............................................................. 61 4.3.2 Audience’s Taste and Current Competition Situation .............. 62 4.4 Research Question Four ...................................................................... 63 4.4.1 The Brand Effect ...................................................................... 63 4.4.2 The Professional Production .................................................... 63 v 4.4.3 Airing Landscape and Target Audience ................................... 63 Chapter Five: Discussion .................................................................................. 66 5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 66 5.2 Discussion ........................................................................................... 67 5.3 Recommendation for Future Research................................................ 68 5.4 Conclusion .......................................................................................... 69 References ......................................................................................................... 72 vi List of Tables Table 1 ....................................................................................................... 12 Table 2 ....................................................................................................... 15 Table 3 ....................................................................................................... 45 Table 4 ....................................................................................................... 46 Table 5 ....................................................................................................... 54 Table 6 ....................................................................................................... 55 vii List of Figures Figure 1 ........................................................................................................................ 39 viii Abstract Foreign Introduced Reality Television in China’s Market Yiyan He From the hit of Super Girls’ Voice in 2004, Chinese audience got to know the new genre of television programs, reality TV. Various types of reality television appear on TV and such reality programs have been popular since then. Before 2010, the laws about TV program copyrights were not clear in Mainland China; so there were lots of shows whose format were copied from foreign popular shows in China’s media market. Since 2010, some foreign reality shows were introduced while there are still a number of shows plagiarized from foreign shows. Those introduced shows got much attention and became hot topics during airing. In 2012 and 2013, more TV stations chose to buy and broadcast Chinese version introduced shows for prime time slot. But does the Chinese audience accept the introduced programs? Do the introduced shows affect the China’s TV market? The purpose of the study is to research the current reality television market of China for foreign introduced programs and at the same time to get to know the real Chinese audience’s taste for reality television and market of reality TV for interested foreign media investors and local production companies. Three popular different-style introduced reality shows are discussed. The thesis concludes that brand effect, professional production, right broadcasting landscape and other basic elements of the reality ix TV are the key factors for an introduced or a co-produced show to succeed in China’s market. x 11 Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 Introduction 1926 was a meaningful year for the television history. It was in that year that the world's first television system that could broadcast moving pictures was successfully tested and publicly demonstrated (Kamm & Baird, 2002). And John Logie Baird, the inventor of the television system, once said that television would one day make every family a mini cinema (People Daily, 2003). After more than eight decades, what he stated has already been realized. Television has become one of the most essential media of people’s everyday life (People Daily, 2003). According to the statistics from Worldbank, the share of household with television of the whole world is 84.46%, in which 97.29% for high-income countries and 88.9% for the middle countries in 2002. And the proportion kept rising from 2000 to 2004 (see Table 1). As an influential medium in the 20th century, television changed people’s life (Luo, 2009). 12 Table 1 The Share of Household with Television of the whole world from 2000 to 2004（%） Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 The World 79.23 79.59 84.46 High-income 96.90 96.94 97.39 97.5 Countries Middle-income 85.05 83.71 88.90 Countries Low-income 14.03 16.06 14.8 Countries Mainland 86.12 87.25 89.17 90.00 91.00 China Hong Kong