For Hong Minsheng, the 81-year-old former vice president of China Central Television (CCTV), the Spring Festival Gala has become part of his life.

On January 16, 2013, Hong, who oversaw the Spring Festival Gala from 1983 to 1992, once again attended the gala rehearsal as an observer, but this time he offered no advice.

The Spring Festival Gala, one of the most watched TV programs in the entire world, has become something different in Hong's eyes.

"Particularly in the past five years, the gala has seemed out of touch with reality. Society has witnessed many different kinds of problems but the gala shows none of them," Hong later told the China Weekly.

First screened on the Spring Festival Eve of 1983, the gala greeted audiences as China's reform and opening-up was gathering steam. As China's economy boomed, the budget for the gala grew with it. The stage became larger and more ostentatious, but increased ratings did not go hand-in-hand with the increased spending.

Hong used to call the directors of the gala after watching the rehearsals, to tell them the gala needed to jettison the flamboyant dances and songs, and focus more on people's lives.

Eventually he gave up, knowing that there was little the directors could do and that his advice would only put them in a difficult position.

Halcyon days of spring

To this day, Hong still thinks the Spring Festival Gala that took place in 1984 was the most successful of them all.

In 1984, China's reform and opening-up had just started and Chinese society was still sealed off from the rest of the world.

Hong told the gala director Huang Yihe that the performance needed to be different - something less rigid, but still focused on what people wanted.

The Guangming Daily had reported that UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher would meet with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping at the end of 1984 to talk about the return of Hong Kong. This gave Hong and Huang an idea.

The 1984 Spring Festival Gala became the first mainland TV program to invite a Hong Kong singer to perform.

The performance was such an unprecedented success that even the then general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Hu Yaobang, asked CCTV for a videotape of the performance after watching Zhang Mingmin, the Hong Kong singer, sing "My Chinese Heart."

"It came at a time when people felt that our country needed to open up and connect with the outside world," said Huang. "The appearance of the Hong Kong singer showed that we are not isolated."

The 1984 gala was also the occasion for landmark sketches performed by Huang Hong, Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao, which mocked social problems and helped define the nature of comedy for CCTV Spring Festival Galas that followed.

"People need all kinds of performances from the gala. It's easy to put on songs and dances that praise the prosperity of the country but quite difficult to make a show that reveals social problems," Hong said.

Death by a thousand cuts

After its success in 1983 and 1984, CCTV's Spring Festival Gala became a must-see event on Chinese New Year's Eve. It was no longer an ordinary TV program but a national event that had to be censored by different government departments to make sure the content was "appropriate."

Hong, as the gala's head director, had to answer to representatives of the workers' union, the youth league, the women's federation, the army and other branches of the government. Every one of them had its own opinion about the gala.

"My job had nothing to do with art," said Hong.

Hong put in place rules that specified that every line must first be approved by the CCTV authorities, including himself, before being broadcast live. He also stipulated that segments of the live event had to take the same amount of time as the rehearsals, with a difference of no more than 30 seconds. With a New Year's Eve countdown being part of the performance, timing was crucial.

By 1992, the year Hong retired, the rules had become so elaborate that every performance had to be reviewed by censors five times before it could make it to the stage.

In order to make things work, Hong would first call Li Ruihuan, at that time a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, to ask for his opinion. Hong found that other government representatives were reluctant to bring up objections if the program had already been approved by Li Ruihuan.

Life of the party

Hong's favorite gala segment of all time was a sketch by Huang Hong and Hou Yaowen in 1994, in which the two actors mocked China's bureaucracy by playing poker with officials' business cards.

"Sarcasm is the essence of crosstalks and sketches," said Hong, who insisted on having at least two segments about social issues when he was in charge of the gala.

"It may be a matter of luck when it comes to getting past the censors. But it's our responsibility to present people with something that tackles real-life problems," Hong added.

Hong went to the gala rehearsal every year. The stage has gotten prettier and grander but the content of the programs has seen little improvement.

He once invited Teresa Teng, a famous Taiwanese singer, to perform on the Chinese mainland. Teng declined, citing her Kuomintang background.

Hong remembered telling his colleagues that the political environment had become less stifling and that he was confident Teng would one day be able to perform on the Chinese mainland.

Teng passed away in 1995 and never set foot on mainland soil.

Hong was a little sentimental as he talked about the gala. After all, the era when television stations would break all the rules to put on a good performance had long passed.

China Weekly - Global Times