Stop entertaining and start putting out serious shows at prime time, China has ordered satellite television stations, the New Express Daily reported Tuesday.
Starting on the July 1 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, provincial satellite TV stations have been instructed to limit entertainment to three times a week between 5 and 10 pm, the Guangzhou-based newspaper reported.
Several TV stations confirmed to the newspaper that they had received an oral notice from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), but not the official order yet.
SARFT recently organized a symposium on how to shrink entertainment in TV shows, according to the Beijing-based Legal Mirror, inviting managers from Beijing Shanghai, Sichuan, Liaoning, Hunan, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu TV stations to discuss restrictions.
SARFT believes China has too many shoddy shows with content harmful to the masses, the Beijing-based Legal Mirror reported, and so is working on a new policy against entertainment to be issued in the second half of the year.
Even without an official order, TV stations rushed to adjust by either making their shows less entertaining or moving them after 10 pm.
"Several anchors of entertainment shows stopped me and asked worriedly 'Do the news programs need more people? I can try hard to alter my career path!'" wrote Jiangxi TV anchorman Qing Yuan on his microblog.
The TV watchdog should tolerate bad shows as long as they "don't hurt the important essentials," believed Zhan Jiang, a professor with Beijing Foreign Studies University.
"It's neither possible nor necessary to set a high moral caliber of entertainment," Zhan told the Global Times Tuesday.
Microblogger Maoshan Cuoren supported SARFT's intervention.
"Some shows are vulgar and indelicate," he wrote. "We should improve the quality."
SARFT couldn't be reached for comment as of late Tuesday.
Reports in May alleging that SARFT had told satellite TV stations not to broadcast spy, criminal, romance or time travel dramas appear not to have been fully implemented as some such shows continued to be screened.