China Cuts 'Excessive Entertainment' From TV

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."

Comments

Its hard for me to critisize this move.

[Narcocide]

If I had my own country, I would make reality TV illegal too.

Re:Its hard for me to critisize this move.

[msobkow]

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:FCC Should take note

[kelarius]

TV doesn't make people stupid, it just keeps stupid people entertained and out of the public eye, so why is excessively entertaining media a bad thing?

Personally I'd rather have my idiots at home glued to the TV than out doing idiotic things...

Re:All power to China

[MattBecker82]

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.

Re:Practical arguments against?

[tsotha]

When the people are active in a society they question things, get involved in things, and yes challenge things they feel aren't right.

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.

And Yet

[d3ac0n]

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.

Re:And Yet

[AnonyMouseCowWard]

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.