television celebrities

The idea of television celebrity (zhiming renshi) took hold in the 1990s. Probably the most widely respected celebrities are Zhao Zhongxiang and Ni Ping, longstanding hosts of the annual Spring Festival Variety Show (Chunjie lianhuan wanhui). Zhao has hosted this annual event since 1986. He also fronted the magazine show Zhengda Magazine (Zhengda zongyi) during the early 1990s. A first-generation veteran of CCTV (Chinese Central Television)’s National News Broadcast (Xinwen lianbo), Zhao has presented the high-rating shows People and Nature (Ren yü ziran) and Animal World (Dongwu shijie) broadcast on CCTV. He is invariably called upon to host auspicious national events, such as the forty-fifth and fiftieth anniversaries of China’s National Day, and the festive celebrations surrounding the handover of Hong Kong and Macao.

His Spring Festival co-host Ni Ping has been the stalwart of Arts Kaleidoscope (Zongyi daguan) since 1990. However, she has been less successful with her own CCTV talk show called Chat (Liaotian).

Another well-known celebrity from the early 1990s is Yang Lan, who was the original host of Zhengda Magazine until 1994. Yang later hosted a show on Shanghai TV in the mid 1990s called Yan Lan’s Viewpoint (Yan Lan shixian), before moving to Phoenix Satellite Television (Fenghuang weishi). In 2001 she returned to prominence, producing documentary content for Hong Kong-based Sun Satellite Ltd, fronted by herself and Hong Kong film and TV producer Xu Xiaoming. One of the most popular celebrities currently working with CCTV is Cui Yongyuan, the witty and affable presenter of the talk show Tell It Like It Is (Shihua shishuo).

Further reading

Zhao, Bin (1998). ‘Popular Family Television and Party Ideology—the Spring Festival Eve Happy Gathering’. Media, Culture and Society 20.1:43–58.

MICHAEL KEANE