An Overview of The Voice of China

The Voice of China Official Poster (2012)
http://www.baike.com/wiki/中国好声音%5B音乐评论节目%5D

The Voice of China (2012) is adapted from Netherland’s The Voice of Holland. Having eight complete seasons since 2012, The Voice of China is considered as one of the most popular and long-lasting television programs in the Chinese television history.

The purpose of this show is to find talented singers from the public by having rounds of competition. The show has four superstars, and they function both as judges and coaches. After the very first round of competition, all the contestants will choose the coach they like and get into his/her team. Then, after different forms of competitions, there will be a final winner determined by public votes, casting from social media platforms and live audiences. The television itself has received a lot of criticism from the public for its lack of creativity. Beyond that, even the rotatable chairs are imported from Holland, making more audiences feel angry toward the show.

The Rotatable Chair in the Show and its Function.
Source: http://zjnews.zjol.com.cn/system/2012/08/07/018716951.shtml

Another highlight of the show is the contestant’s life story. In order to make the television more interesting to watch, the directors intend to include people from different and unique background, and a lot of their stories are too emotional and too special to believe. According to the investigation report on the audiences’ reaction to The Voice of China, Meiling, Peipei, and Li’s analysis based on the charts indicates that this intended design does not work as effective as expected. In fact, many audiences reported more negative feelings towards the stories: 20% of them do not care about the stories at all, 37% said stories are necessary for the television to get ratings, and 20% are disgusted by the stories setting.

Audience Evaluation and Analysis of Contestants’ Background Stories
Source: http://media.people.com.cn/n/2013/0520/c358381-21543986.html

As audiences see more of those “special” context, they will eventually get tired of it. It is true that by showing interesting while unique stories of contestants will make their image more vivid. At the same time, the audiences will certainly get inspired and touched to some degree. However, as more of the stories and contestants’ qualification contains fraud or exaggerations, audiences begin to lose interests to the show. [1]

[1] Hu, Meiling, Tang, Peipei, and Sun, Li, “A Survey of the Audience of The Voice of China,” People.cn, May 20, 2013.