Variety shows usher in a hodgepodge era. How can we make delicious dishes when there is a lack of differentiation?

Variety shows usher in a hodgepodge era. How can we make delicious dishes when there is a lack of differentiation?

In the past two years, following the trend of variety shows such as national talent shows and celebrity competitions, television variety shows have ushered in an era of "entertainment" of variety shows characterized by celebrity reality shows.

With the arrival of summer vacation, the annual variety show war is about to begin. Entering July, we can find that almost every Friday or Saturday night, major first- and second-tier local satellite TV stations are broadcasting TV variety shows with celebrity artists as the main participating guests, and most of them are outdoor reality shows. In fact, outdoor reality shows are not a new form of program. As early as 2000, Guangdong TV launched a "mainland first reality show" called "Survival Challenge". However, the program team and the audience did not have a clear definition of this type of program at the time, but roughly defined it as a "real-time documentary". However, with the full arrival of the entertainment era, and the entertainment effect and ratings impact of celebrity artists in a variety show have continued to rise, the era of TV variety shows with celebrity artists as the main participating guests has begun to arrive.
 Obviously they can rely on their talents, but they just want to show off their "appearance" Of course, the format of TV variety shows is not limited to this kind of outdoor and indoor celebrity reality show. Before this, music talent shows were also very popular. There have been Hunan Satellite TV's "Super Girl" and "Happy Boy", Dragon TV's "My Style My Show", "Come on! Good Man", "China's Got Talent", Qinghai Satellite TV's "Flowers", CCTV's "Avenue of Stars", "I Want to Go to the Spring Festival Gala", etc. Talent shows can not only create a number of entertainment and cultural phenomena, but also use the "star dream" hidden in the hearts of the audience as a point of exploration, and gradually cultivate the "fan economy" of star-making and star-chasing into a powerful lever to pry the entertainment market. In fact, the craze for the national talent show format has not completely subsided. For example, Zhejiang Satellite TV's "The Voice of China" Season 4 will officially return this Friday night. However, under the impact of the celebrity reality show trend, even "The Voice of China", which can be called a phenomenal work of national talent shows, still cannot escape the decline of its star-making index year by year, and has to rely on changing mentors again and again to attract attention. Especially in this year's extremely dense celebrity reality show situation, "The Voice of China 4" spared no expense to bring out Jay Chou, a generation of idols born in the 80s and 90s, to support and build momentum for the show. In "Extreme Challenge", a "large-scale, outdoor, competitive, inspirational" variety show just launched by Dragon TV this year, it has brought together a group of highly anticipated star artists such as Huang Bo, the 5 billion box office actor, Sun Honglei, the powerful "big brother", Huang Lei, the talented Beijing Film Academy teacher, Luo Zhixiang, the famous Taiwanese male singer, and Sun Yixing, the new idol "little fresh meat". Obviously, before commenting and evaluating the real observability of a TV variety show, super high-looking and topical guests have become one of the key points for the success of the show. From snatching audiences to snatching guests, the stakes of TV variety shows are getting higher and higher. At present, in the entertainment industry, most of the celebrities who frequently make headlines have participated in the recording of TV variety shows, and some celebrities have even recorded more than one or two TV shows. While the program producers select artists with "potential", many celebrities also hope to rely on this hot outdoor reality show to enhance their fame and reputation. It is this interaction that has led to the continuous increase in the star index of celebrity artists in the program and the straight-line increase in the investment cost of TV programs. It is reported that the appearance fee of Deng Chao, the captain of "Running Man", is not less than 10 million, Jolin Tsai's remuneration as a judge of "China is Listening" is as high as 46 million, and the 5 billion movie emperor Huang Bo's variety show debut price in "Go Fighting" is 48 million, and the kung fu superstar Jet Li has received an invitation for a pay of about 60 million from a variety show. In this regard, some netizens said that it was the sky-high appearance fees of celebrities that caused the investment cost of the entire program to soar, and under the single advertising model, the final impact on the audience was the various "horizontal" advertising placements in the program. In this regard, Jet Li told the media that it is meaningless to just discuss whether the actors' pay is high or not. If we put it in the entire film industry, the production of Hong Kong and American films 20 years ago encountered the problem of excessive actor pay, but the reasonable development of the entire film industry, that is, the transition from commercial films to the film industry (reasonable risk sharing), no longer has this problem. For example, some American actors do not take pay but share, and are willing to share risks. The same is true for TV variety shows. Yu Hangying, the chief director of the show "Running Man", also said: "The value of every celebrity artist is there, and their influence on the show is also there. The price given by the Running Man program team is not unreasonable." The originality of the program is not enough. The original program lacks innovation. Among the variety shows that can be called phenomenal works, almost all of them are imported overseas program copyrights, including Zhejiang Satellite TV's "The Voice of China" and "Running Man", Hunan Satellite TV's "Where Are We Going, Dad" and "I Am a Singer". This directly means that it is better to say that it is not so much a variety show boom as a boom in the introduction of overseas models. Of course, the lack of originality of domestic TV variety shows can be more or less traced to the large-scale introduction of this overseas model. Because, whether from the perspective of actual production or the commercialization of the program itself, buying the copyright of relatively mature foreign programs is more cost-effective and safer than original programs. More importantly, the facts have indeed proved this point. In the so-called "cruelest outdoor reality show" program "This Is Life" launched by Zhejiang Satellite TV, due to the unreasonable design of the crew and the overly strict program requirements, some stars could not bear the pressure and quit halfway. In the reality show "Celebrities Come to My Home" invested heavily by Jiangsu Satellite TV, because a group of entertainment goddesses were required to "marry" farmers and experience rural life, the performance of the stars in the program was too contrasting and the effect was extremely poor. What's more exaggerated is that Taiwanese artist Tao Jingying and her husband once gave up recording the reality show "True Love on the Road" because of physical discomfort. Later, they broke up with the program crew and exposed all kinds of faults of the program crew on Weibo, thus revealing a cruel and heartbreaking corner of the star reality show. In fact, it was the unreasonable design and planning of the original program that led to the unsatisfactory final effect of the entire program. On the other hand, the purchased overseas copyright programs do have multiple advantages of high efficiency, few detours and low cost. It can be seen that the contradiction between commercialization and originality under market logic has become an important cause of the lack of originality in Chinese variety shows.
 More than just originality, making a good sequel to a program is also a flaw. In the upcoming TV variety show war, it can be seen that many variety shows are actually sequels of the original IP. For example, "The Voice of China" Season 4, "Where Are We Going, Dad?" Season 3, "Running Man" Season 2, "Dad Is Back" Season 2, "12 Tastes of Chef Nic" Season 2, etc. At present, domestic TV variety shows have generally entered a strange circle, that is, the continued popularity of a good program often does not exceed three seasons. In the design of the sequel program, in order to highlight the difference between the program and the original series, the crew often uses some guest characters and plot changes to enhance the topicality of the program. For example, "Where Are We Going, Dad 2" and "Dad Is Back 2" both have a situation where a father leads two cute kids to participate in the program recording, and both programs have failed at this point. Cao Ge was criticized by netizens for losing patience in taking care of the two children, and Tang Zhizhong withdrew from the program recording midway because he could not treat the two children equally. The ability of the program "The Voice of China" to create stars is also getting worse and worse. Except for Wu Mochou who successfully gained a foothold in the entertainment industry in the first season, the champion of the second season, Li Qi, and the champion of the third season, Zhang Bichen, have not performed well after the end of the program. With the experience and lessons of the inferior program "Where Are We Going, Dad 2", "Where Are We Going, Dad 3" which was just aired last week has become a slightly improved sequel in variety shows. Although the "4+1" combination format is extremely challenging, the five cute kids with different personalities still won the recognition of the audience instantly, especially the use of "Lan Yu CP", which even raised the entertainment value of the entire program to the level of art. With the popularity of TV variety shows, this trend has even swept the video website industry. It is reported that this year, major video website companies have also increased the production of variety shows in terms of self-made content, but whether they can take advantage of this to counterattack traditional TV stations is another matter.  

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.

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