STVF Continues to Evolve with a “Big Battle” of Popular Variety Shows

A few days ago, the Shanghai TV Festival Organizing Committee announced that the President of the Jury position for the 2015 “Magnolia” Award Television Series, Documentary, and Animation award categories will be held by renowned Chinese director Yan Jian’gang, Emmy Award winner Richard Bradley, and Asian Animation Summit founder Tim Brooke-Hunt respectively.

For the Shanghai TV Festival, this year will be a “year of reformation”. After just celebrating its 20th “birthday” last year, the Shanghai TV Festival is taking on a bright new look, removing its burdens so that it may move forward effortlessly. The Organizing Committee has not only made adjustments to the awards, but also reduced the number of awards in order to improve their value. The four main award categories remaining after this reformation will also enable the Shanghai TV Festival to more fully cover all TV program formats. It has been reported that nearly a thousand TV programs from more than 70 countries and regions will compete in this year’s Shanghai TV Festival. Besides the ever-popular TV Series award category, there is now a Variety award category which collects the top variety programs from each of China’s big TV channels, including such phenomenal variety shows as China’s version of Running Man and The Voice of China.

The Shanghai TV Festival was founded in 1986, and its “Magnolia” Award was China’s first international television awards event. In the over 20 years since its foundation, the Shanghai TV Festival has led and pushed forward the flourishing development of China’s television industry, while always encouraging exchanges with the outside world. The 21st Shanghai TV Festival will be held from June 8 to June 12, and its main activities will include TV program awards, the International Film and TV Market, Forum, and the Magnolia Awards Ceremony. Other special events such as the screening of excellent TV productions from around the world, and the Shanghai Student TV festival, will be held simultaneously.

The Battle of the Bund between China’s version of Running Man and The Voice of China

Following the successive jury line-up announcements for the Shanghai TV Festival’s three main “veteran” TV Series, Animation, and Documentary award categories, the jury line-up for the Variety award category is still somewhat a mystery by contrast. However, judging from the productions that the Organizing Committee has recently announced will be competing, there’s bound to be quite a “fight” in Shanghai this June.

In recent years, China’s variety TV shows have appeared in force, as all of the big TV channels have been weeding out the old to bring forth the new, they have developed different styles of variety shows to compete for viewers. The standards of Chinese variety TV show productions have also been comprehensively upgraded, and it can be said that that China has entered the “Heydays of Variety Shows”. For the Shanghai TV Festival, the decision to adjust the award categories to include a Variety award category was not made lightly. The decision was made only after repeated debates and careful consideration, and was not only in response to the boom in variety TV shows, but rather after having seen there is a broad room for development when it comes to the formats of local variety TV and other original shows. With the rapid development of Chinese variety TV shows, the Shanghai TV Festival felt it was necessary to step forward and provide a stage for and exhibition of and exchanges between these excellent programs which have already received public recognition, but still lack the professional acknowledgement that awards give. This marks yet another proactive step that the Shanghai TV Festival has taken in its 20 plus years of development.

Since the Variety award category was launched and the collection of TV programs has begun, the Shanghai TV Festival Organizing Committee has already received the eager participation of over 80 variety shows from nearly 30 TV channels and production companies around the nation. These include ever popular and long-running shows such as Happy Camp and If You Are the One, as well as leading new variety shows such as China’s version of Running Man and The Brain. Of course the most popular singing reality TV shows can’t be left out, and programs such as I Am a Singer, The Voice of China, and Mama Mia have registered one after another. Even the more unique and original infotainment shows such as Chinese Characters Dictation Competition and Who\'s Still Standing? have also come forward to compete.

Variety Shows More Difficult to Judge than TV Series

Unlike the awards for TV programs like TV series, documentaries and animations, the awards for variety TV shows not only have a very short history in China, but also lack accepted judging criteria due to their special program formats. Thus, the Shanghai TV Festival has made targeted plans for everything from the collection of works and selection principles to the review of candidate works and the award mechanism. The goal is to create the most authoritative variety TV show awards in China.

When it comes to the collection of works, besides the eager participation of the big TV channels, the Shanghai TV Festival Organizing Committee has certainly had to do a fair bit of proactive work as well. Invitations directed at excellent programs have done their part to brighten up the list of registered programs. With one fell sweep, pretty much every one of the previous year’s hottest variety TV programs have been collected. At the same time, the Shanghai TV Festival has also invited some of the top talents engaged in variety TV programs, including broadcasting platform representatives, TV program comment researchers, and veteran media journalists and editors, etc. It has formed a jury panel consisting of 30 professionals, and sent each of these jury panel members from each part of the country a ballot. The independent ballot oversight institution Deloitte Huayong Certified Public Accountants has been solely responsible for the entire process from sending to collecting and counting these ballots, ensuring that the award selection system is “impartial and fair”.

After two rounds of voting by the professional jury panel members, the two main awards for Best Variety Program and Best Reality Show will be automatically generated. Although this very lean setup for the awards may make the “death struggle” between these excellent TV programs seem particularly brutal, it also ensures that each of the awards is handed out fairly, without the slightest bit of “bias”.

Through the award selection activities of this award category, the Shanghai TV Festival hopes to commend the variety TV shows that are well-made, enjoy great popularity, and are a good influence on society. This way it will help to guide development trends in China’s variety TV shows, and encourage the creation and production of even better variety TV shows.