在一个月作为共同主办“我几乎爱健康之后”我开始了解一两件事关于中国电视。 我经常听说中国电视的主要观察(从汉语和外国人)是它是充分的低品质编程。 我现在有几个中国亲密的朋友以频繁地下载美国电视展示从互联网的好英语。 他们全都有毫不含糊地告诉我的所有美国展示在汉语是优越一个，并且认为，当给时选择，他们也是不会观看中国电视节目在美国一个。 基于我对中国电视(整体上和电视的自己的个人有限的暴露)，我会必须说我同意这主张。

有几种理论为什么中国电视如此是…怎么能我恰好投入此？… crappy。 你是中国教育不强调创造性和艺术和那西方一样多，并且这由影片和电视产业反射。 当有真相到这个声明时，我认为它只代表 一个难题。 另一个因素是中国TV/film产业的相对青年时期。 当产业不是那个年轻人时，必须放它入三十年前，被允许的仅唯一的电视和影片是赞美共产党的那些的透视。

But another reason I am finding for the severe lack of quality programming in China is massive dilution of the talent pool. Much of this is because the Chinese media is still runs essentially like a 单位 (danwei), the old work units which were the building blocks of Socialism. While private enterprise is rapidly rendering the concept of a danwei job obsolete, government offices, schools, public hospitals, and the media all still operate under the old danwei system. What this means is endless levels of hierarchy, webs of bureaucracy, and at the very top cadres with leather day planners who don’t seem to do any actual work, but somehow have the highest salaries and the personal drivers.

Chinese TV operates under this system. Chinese TV has 3 levels: Central Television (CCTV) which is based out of Beijing, provincial television, and city television. CCTV is available all over China. Provincial channels are usually available regionally (i.e. Fujian Provincial TV in most Southeastern provinces, as well as most major cities), and local channels are typically only available in the cities they are broadcast from.

Unlike the US however, where local stations are typically only responsible for local news, in China local stations are often responsible for their own programming. Because of this, production, directing, and acting talent are all spread around the country, rather than being focused on several major TV networks, and then syndicated across the country. Consider my show as an example. My co-host, Zheng Zheng, is only one year out of college. She is attractive, speaks perfect Mandarin, and does a decent job reporting news with me on “I Love Health.” However, she is probably one of several thousand, and would not stand a chance compared to the announcers on CCTV. Then there is Ting Ting who writes and directs all of our material. Ting Ting does an excellent job preparing the material, and coaching Zheng Zheng and my performance. However, she just graduated college this spring…with an advertising degree…and she is the writer for a TV show. I know friends in the US who studied screen writing 4 years in college, waited tables in Hollywood another 4, and still never got their chance to write anything. Then of course there is me. Granted I speak Chinese, but so do several tens of thousands of other foreigners in China. I think I do a moderately decent job overall as an announcer, but there is no chance I would be on TV if shows if they were all centralized, even accounting for the fact I am a Westerner.

When you consider how dispersed the talent is over China, it starts to become clear why programming is so sub-par. The last two shows I was a contestant on, SuperMe and Superstar were both ripoffs of the famous Hunan TV show Super Girls, which is the famous Chinese clone of American Idol. They were both were produced by Fujian provincial TV, yet had no local connection to Fujian. Instead, they were just another one of the several hundred American Idol ripoffs currently in production in China. I can’t help but posit that if TV were centralized, and they rounded up all of the best talent from the hundreds of stations across the country, held try-outs, and began production with a top-notch staff, the quality would vastly improve. Instead, what we are stuck with are hundreds of small local TV stations, all producing their own redundant clones of the same TV shows.

Personally, I sense that a big reason TV centralization has yet to occur is because it would necessitate a restructuring of the system. This would require firing a great deal of the TV deadweight (cadres) as well as trimming down the personnel to only the best the country has to offer. This would not bode well with most of the people who would have the power to bring about such a change, and also would stand to cause considerable “instability,” the ultimate pet peeve of the CCP. Until this happens, we are probably stuck with the same stagnant programming.