Scene from Super Girls (2005) on Hunan Television Station
May has ushered in a new set of reality singing contests for 2012, such as Sound of Heaven, Star Unlimited, Blossoming Flowers and Singing Passion. Noticeably absent from the lineup is Super Girls (the Chinese title was changed to Happy Girls in 2009), cancelled after being aired for five consecutive seasons.
From the smash debut in 2004 to the quiet farewell, the ending for Super Girls is both surprising and unexpected. The national singing contest for female contestants was among the most popular entertainment shows in China when it first aired. It cultivated many artistic talents in the past, including Li Yuchun Shang Wenjie, Yu Kewei and Zeng Yike.
But the ratings for Super Girls declined year after year, with contestants from later seasons peaking early in their career development. The top three winners from 2011 cannot be compared to their predecessors in 2005.
Fabricated shows
"Confronted with so many talent shows of the similar types, the public is tired and will not follow the same trend from the years before," said Tian Jinshuang, an entertainment planner.
During the Super Girls competition period last year, Hunan TV created storylines for the contestants, some fabricated to attract public attention, at the expense of pushing away audiences.
Most shows on air lack novelty. Though Super Girls was a pioneer before, there were few innovations after five seasons. Other talent-based reality programs are also coming to an end. The National Youth Singing Competition, a talent show that promotes Chinese vocal music, held 14 times over the previous years was also cut, due to its lack of, style, creativity and energy.
Cultural creativity is necessary for quality programs and the only effective guarantee for the sustainable development of China's TV industry; without this force, more shows will be doomed.
Winners lose
The top 10 winners of each seasons of Super Girls are required to sign an eight-year contract with EE-Media, an entertainment media company established in 2004 in Shanghai, that has a partnership with Hunan Television Station. After five sessions, EE-Media has recruited many singers.
"After years of operating for Super Girls, EE-Media packaged a lot of popular stars. But some left EE-Media despite high compensation, including Zhou Bichang and He Jie, Shang Wenjie. This exposed problems in the talent management of EE-Media," said veteran media member Lu Wei.
Some artists would rather be involved in lawsuits or pay a compensation fee than stay with the company. The top three winners of last year's Super Girls have far less influence than Zhou Bichang, He Jie and Shang Wenjie, winners who terminated their contracts earlier.
"EE-Media abides by 'short-term, discount-style selling' principles, and its operations follow suit," said Tian. Without long-term packaging, singers from talent shows have little commercial success in the market. Naturally, singers will consider other opportunities, according to Tian.
In response to the allegation that the company's "short-term selling" strategy led to the quick turnover rate of new stars, Yang Liu, vice president of EE-Media said that this is not true.
"We mapped detailed career plans for each of them," she said. "The top three winners from last year all developed smoothly, in terms of music recording, advertisement endorsement and movie production."
Yang blames the diminishing media exposure for the decreasing popularity of the winners.
"What Li Yuchun and Zhang Liangying got from media reports in 2005 is incomparable," she said.
"The environment for these talent-based reality programs has changed a lot," she said, referring to the tense competition among different television stations and strict government policies on entertainment programs.