Editor's Note:

Are you up on what the hundreds of millions of Chinese netizens are talking about? Take a moment and get the rundown of what's hot, what's trending, and what's drawing the most buzz on the Chinese blogosphere.

Courtesy of The Colbert Report and to widespread unforgiving feedback, the Chinese mainland's daily prime time news show has undergone a glittering face-lift that will debut this spring.

In an interview with US magazine Fast Company, Jim Fenhagen, the American set designer behind The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, disclosed that China Central Television (CCTV) hired him to design a first-class newsroom that trumps its US counterparts.

"The sets, which feature columns and a serpentine desk wrapped in high-res screens, are designed around the latest in LED technology, which uses 2.5 mm pixels," read the magazine.

They are "very, very expensive," Fenhagen was quoted as saying.

This is not the first time a Chinese show has turned to Colbert for inspiration.

The Banquet, a show broadcast by Ningxia Satellite TV, was reported in January to have borrowed heavily from the opening credits of the show.

Broadcast 7 pm every day, Xinwen Lianbo has been a CCTV fixture for decades and stands accused by many Net users of not evolving from its turgid propaganda format.

"Yes, the new design will beat US broadcasters, but the news content it broadcasts will only outrun North Korea's," a Net user named Xu Xunlei wrote on Weibo.

"No surprise, China's new buildings often dwarf those in foreign countries," another Net user Simon wrote.