Hunan TV confirmed Saturday that it had been ordered by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) to suspend the popular talent show Super Girl for one year.
However, SARFT did not hand out bans to similar talent shows on other satellite TV stations. The Qinghai satellite TV station will continue its show Blossoming Flowers, and the Zhejiang satellite TV station can make its own decision as to whether it will broadcast We Are the Music, the Beijing Times reported.
Right after Super Girl 2011 broadcast its finals live early on Saturday morning, Li Hao, a deputy editor in chief and press spokesman at Hunan Satellite Television, finally admitted that SARFT had ordered a suspension of the show in 2012, confirming rumors of a ban, according to the Beijing Times.
The show reportedly exceeded its allotted time slot when its first finals were held on July 15, leading to a verbal warning from SARFT. Since the second live show did not achieve the desired ratings, Hunan TV risked exceeding its time slot again in the following shows.
Li told the paper that the time issue was one of the reasons Super Girl was being suspended and Hunan TV would obey the decision by SARFT. He also said that a series of new programs about household services will be broadcast but refused to disclose the details.
"We received the SARFT rectification notice a month ago and have tried hard to control the length accordingly, but failed," an anonymous Hunan TV staff member told the Global Times on Sunday. "We are not sure now whether the show will resume the year after next."
It was the second time that Super Girl was stopped, as it was first stopped in 2007 after being held for three years, and came back to the screens in 2009.
The unnamed staff member said that the decision "only forces us to be more innovative." He added that it was time for a change after seven years of Super Girl.
"Hunan TV is already a famous brand and people trust this brand. If we have more new and attractive programs, we won't worry about the competition," he said.
Mao Kaiyun, a freelance commentator on the Hainan-based hinews.cn, said SARFT had fallen into a trap set by Hunan TV, saying the station was using the ban to gain a favorable impression from the audience while attempting to renew an obsolete program.
"I think entertainment programs themselves are positive, but there should be explicit guidelines released by the authorities to prevent speculation," Zhong Danian, a professor at the Communication University of China, told the Global Times on Sunday, "but there should also be a limitation and bottom line for them."
Mo Ting contributed to this story