Showing them what they want

A staffer passes a promotion board posting hosts of different programs at Hunan TV. [China Daily]

Long Mei checks out the ratings report each week with the same anxiety of a student looking up her college entrance exam scores.

An elegant woman in her 30s, Long is the producer of Kuai Le Da Ben Ying, or the Happy Citadel, one of the country's most popular entertainment shows, which features hosts talking and playing games with guests - sometimes everyday people, sometimes stars. It airs every Saturday on Hunan TV, which has become one of the nation's most influential provincial TV stations. Millions of viewers all over China tune in every day to one of its nearly 30 TV shows. People outside the Chinese mainland, including Japan, Australia and the United States, also watch Hunan TV.

Long and her 20-plus team are, for the moment, satisfied with the all-important ratings.

"Some 30 out of the 50 episodes aired last year topped the national ratings list for TV programs. As for this year, just three episodes so far lost the No 1 position, and that was to the World Cup," Long said.

Since the show hit the airwaves in July 1997, it has become the trump card of Hunan TV. It covered the Saturday night golden time (7:30 to 10 pm) for a continuous 13 years and has never disappointed the station's top brass or the audience.

A straight-A report never lessens the self-imposed crisis in Long's and her team members' heads, however.

"The staffers are under high pressure. If a show doesn't meet the ratings requirement, it is taken off without argument," said Wang Xubo, vice director of the editor's office at Hunan TV.

Hunan TV represents a new era in television for China. After more than 30 years of rapid and sustainable development, China's television undertakings have made great progress. Statistics from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television show that by the end of 2008, China had 277 city-level TV stations - 7.66 times the number in 1978. An overall 1,356 public television programs have been made by these TV stations - 32.9 times the number in 1980.

The national television coverage reaches 96.9 percent of China's population, an increase of 69.2 percent compared to 1982.