The debut last weekend of China's version of the popular US reality show America's Next Top Model was after prime time as part of new rules against "immoral" entertainment, state media said.
Sichuan Satellite TV, producers of China's Next Top Model, aired the first of 10 weekly installments nationwide last Sunday night at 10:30pm. The time slot was chosen to comply with an October government directive banning reality shows from the prime time period of 7:30 - 10:30pm the Xinhua news agency reported.
Like the US version, the show will follow a group of prospective models as they vie for the favor of judges, airing profiles of individual contestants and how they "worked to overcome obstacles in their lives," Xinhua quoted producers as saying.
Officials last year moved to cut down on "uninspiring and immoral" reality shows, which have increased in China amid popular demand for something other than the typically puritanical fare available on state-controlled media.
The ruling Communist Party's censors particularly targeted China's version of American Idol after the final of the previous year's version of the show attracted 400 million viewers - roughly a third of the population.
Contestants on Happy Boy, as the show was called, were ordered not to cry or scream and to sing only "healthy and ethically inspiring" songs, among other requirements.
"No weirdness, no vulgarity, no low taste," the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television told the organizers of Happy Boy.
Aside from the ban on prime time appearances, the government banned a genre of reality shows in which patients underwent sex-change operations and cosmetic surgery live on television.
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