'Man From Atlantis’ top TV in China

Press, 31 March 1980, Page 19

'Man From Atlantis’ top TV in China

NZPA-Reuter Peking The starting time of a concert in Peking by a leading foreign classical pianist was altered so that-the audience would not miss an episode of “Man from Atlantis,’’ the first American television series to be shown on Chinese television.

When it first started early this year, the series took China by storm, and just about everyone who could get to a television set on a Saturday night to watch it, did so. The enthusiasm was a result of the novelty of having a piece of pure fantasy entertainment on the screen, something rarely seen before on Chinese TV, always noted in the past for its staid programming with plenty of emphasis on propaganda.

Chinese television is still pretty staid, but the political content has dropped dramatically over the last year or so and entertainment for entertainment’s sake is becoming a major factor, to the surprise and delight of audiences numbed by years of socalled “revolutionary opera.’’

“We must educate the people not with a long face but by supplying them with programmes of every kind,’’ said Chen Hairen, assistant

director of the Chinese central television station.

“Our main purpose is to educate the people to build China into a modern Socialist country, but we still lack experience on how to make television more vivid and entertaining.” he said. During the decade of the cultural revolution starting in 1966. all forms of Chinese culture stagnated, primarily as a result of the authoritarian whim of Chairman Mao’s widow, Jiang Qing, one of the purged “Gang of Four” radicals.

“During the time of the Gang of Four, there were three films, eight songs and eight model revolutionary operas which we were permitted to screen, and we were forced to repeat them over and over again until nobody wanted to watch teleI vision,” Mr Chen said. i Now things have changed, although a typical night’s television in Peking would seem very tedious to an average Western viewer. According to official estimates, there are about 3M television sets in China for a population of 1000 M. Most of the country only has a choice of one channel, although Peking, Shanghai and Canton each have an extra local station.