CCTV revealed its first-ever Spring Festival Gala mascot, Yangyang the Goat, over Sina Weibo. (Photo : Sina Weibo)
While observers, analysts and netizens debated the merits of Wednesday night's Spring Festival Gala, which accompanied the advent of the Year of the Sheep across Chinese airwaves, the one indisputable understanding is that there was a considerable number of Chinese viewers who were tuned into the live-television experience.
The 450 million sets of Chinese eyes that witnessed CCTV's four-and-half-hour variety show watched any of the 189 different domestic channels that broadcast the Spring Gala performances, while the total figure reached 690 million as a result of CCTV airing the program for the first time through 10 foreign broadcasters for an overseas audience.
With online views taken into account, an estimated 30 percent of the east Asian nation's population was watching the broadcast on Wednesday.
In the wake of the post-Gala reviews--the production team was faced with a range of sleights, including misogyny, propagandistic inculcation and mere bad taste, while others defended the content as lighthearted--a Foreign Policy "Tea Leaf Nation" columnist reminded readers that:
". . . the Gala is not meant for clear-eyed analytical viewing. Most Chinese families keep it on as they polish off endless plates of greasy holiday fare, gulp down rice wine, and mindlessly snack on candy, peanuts and sunflower seeds."
For Rachel Lu, the airing of the Spring Gala variety event is an indispensable facet of China's New Year experience, as it is embedded in the national consciousness as an integral part of the auspicious time.
Lu explains that having the Gala broadcast blaring in the background on New Year's Eve is "inseparably entwined with fond memories of going home, seeing family, and being in the festival spirit," while the occasion would "seem too quiet" without it.
