Will Chinese television veiwers have anything good left to watch?
The State Administration of Film, Radio and Television recently published six new guidelines that ban remakes of foreign TV series, as well as shows based on online games. The rules also require that revolution-themed TV series clearly differentiate between friend and foe, and that shows set in modern times reduce the amount of family conflicts.
TV series adapted from novels written online are also “not encouraged.”
What fun!
The announcement was made public on a blog published by Zhongguo Juben Wang (the China Script Website), which stated that the “happy” news has first been released at a national conference.
Scriptwriters have started to panic, believing the new guidelines could threaten their livelihoods. And viewers appear equally concerned. China Daily reports that more than 900,000 people discussed the topic on the web site Weibo, with comments like “I am shocked by the guidelines. So will we still have interesting TV serials to watch in the future?”
Culture critic Tan Fei stated that “the guidelines will prevent scriptwriters from fully applying their talent and creativity and pose a major challenge to the TV industry’s ‘core values’.”
Source: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-08/04/content_15644563.htm