CMG Spring Festival Gala broadcast on multiple screens across South Africa
By Zhao Yinan
The annual Spring Festival Gala held by CMG is the most watched TV program in the world, attracting at least one third of the 1.4 billion Chinese, far exceeding similar events such as European singing competitions.
Since its launch in 1983, the Spring Festival Gala has become one of the iconic elements of the Spring Festival experience in contemporary China.
The annual Spring Festival Gala lasts for several hours and is broadcast from evening to midnight, with a large team involved in the production. Watching the Spring Festival Gala has become the main activity of many Chinese families on New year's Eve.
The programs in the Spring Festival Gala include songs and dances, sketches, acrobatics and so on, all of which have been strictly screened.
To a large extent, the Spring Festival Gala reflects the "collective emotion" that the Chinese government is trying to shape.
It also reflects the self-image that China wants to show.
The Spring Festival Gala often focuses on highlighting national achievements or goals, such as railway construction and space exploration.
Although the ratings of the Spring Festival Gala have declined in recent years, it is reported that this year's Spring Festival Gala in the year of the Dragon achieved the highest ratings in the past six years.
The dragon itself is a symbol often associated with traditional culture in China.
The Spring Festival Gala provides an excellent opportunity for us to understand how China wants its people to understand and feel the current situation of the country, including China's position on the international stage.
At 8pm on February 9 (New Year's Eve), Beijing time, CMG's "2024 Spring Festival Gala" was broadcast to global audiences as scheduled.
The CMG gave full play to the advantages of multi-media integrated communication and presented an audio-visual feast of Chinese culture to the world.
At 1pm on February 10, the overseas communication effect of CMG Spring Festival Gala-related reports has achieved a breakthrough, and all data of communication have reached a record high.
Overseas readings
CMG multi-lingual Spring Festival Gala report has been read overseas more than 695 million times, and the video has been viewed 250 million times.
Number of media on the ground
The CMG has collaborated with more than 2,300 media in 200 countries and regions around the world to simultaneously broadcast and report the Spring Festival Gala.
Number of large screens logged on
3,285 public large screens in 49 countries and 90 cities around the world broadcast and promoted the Spring Festival Gala live.
The number of interactive participations
The Spring Festival Gala Year of the Dragon themed dance challenge attracted enthusiastic participation from netizens from 68 countries and regions, and the global reading volume exceeded 589 million.
The number of live broadcasts on CMG’s overseas social platforms was 79.3 million, an increase of 53.21% from last year.
Globally linked overseas mainstream media widely broadcast and reprinted
Since February 5, CNN has continued to promote the Spring Festival Gala through the CNN North American Channel, International North American Channel, International Europe/Middle East/Africa Channel, International Asia- Pacific Channel and streaming media platforms, covering users around the world.
Over 580 million TV viewers from the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries said that the Spring Festival Gala was full of joy and felt great!
It is like a mirror, reflecting China's vitality and profound cultural heritage.
For the first time, the CMG Spring Festival Gala was jointly broadcast live on Russian TV and its new media platforms.
VK, the largest social media with the largest number of active users in the Russian-speaking region, broadcast the Spring Festival Gala live on its new media client, with more than 2.6 million viewers.
On February 4 of local time, the "Spring Festival Gala Overture, Spring Festival Gala Watched by the World" happy Spring Festival pop-up event kicked off at Nelson Mandela Square in Johannesburg, South Africa's largest city.
As the economic and financial centre of Africa, Johannesburg is a key city in South Africa.
The Dragon Spring Festival Gala promotional video of the CMG was broadcast on the big screen in Nelson Mandela Square.
It not only attracted local residents to stop and watch, but also launched the events related to the Spring Festival Gala in South Africa, ushering a festive atmosphere of the Year of the Dragon to South Africa, which is home to more than 300,000 Chinese expats.
The video also attracted centenarians, as well as professors, teachers and students from the University of Johannesburg.
The 102-year-old Chinese enthusiastically came to watch the show.
Bruce (Xiaoyong) Li
BrandChina
Bruce Xiaoyong Li, Executive Director and Chairman of BrandChina, a South African brand, said in an interview: "BrandChina is deeply involved in the spread of culture abroad, so in South Africa, a multicultural country, we are also trying to spread Chinese traditional culture here.
“As for the Spring Festival Gala, as a flagship project of the CMG, it has become a household name among Chinese audiences over the years, and it is an indispensable and important feast during the Spring Festival. We also look forward to having more opportunities like this in the future to spread Chinese culture, enhance civilisational exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, and then advance such mutual learning among civilisations with other countries, including African countries such as South Africa.”
Nada Wotshela, Group Executive for South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Radio, praised the CMG Spring Festival Gala for showing the South African audience a colourful Chinese culture, which is encouraging and appreciated in an interview.
"SABC is always looking for chances to collaborate with partners like CMG, we were very happy in December when we signed our memorandum of understanding, we are looking forward to more opportunities to collaborate together and we want to bring China to South Africa and South Africa to China, by exchanging our cultures and making sure that the people of the two countries are able to visit freely, they are able to do business and they are able to understand what the Chinese way of life is like, and the Chinese understand the South African way of life and are able to explore the opportunities that are in each Country, so we are looking forward to cooperation with CMG."
Tshilidzi Munyai, Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, said in an interview recently: "You can see the efforts of the Chinese model Chinese people, how do we happen to be part of this CMG gala dinner. I congratulate you for the 41st anniversary of this CMG gala dinner, which is a very, very funtastic experience, and I'm sure the Chinese people are very happy because the economy for the past ten years has grown tremendously and the Chinese are trying to be self-sustainable, but also importantly, China has become a very stable country, very peaceful Country, and I'm sure the growth of their economy, they want to share with the rest of the world, that is very exciting to me.
“Chinese culture, It's very rich, It's over 5000 years old, so we have to learn from China to share that shared experience through this CMG big screen demonstration, So it is very, very much important for us, Number one, China takes very seriously the preservation of culture preservation. China may become modernized and its people can become ingenious with technology, but most importantly, they don't lose their culture, they sustain their culture. Culture is part of Chinese harmonious society. It's part of when China is getting developed and the culture remains part of the inspiration and part of hope and part of the living for the Chinese people. It's important for South Africa and China to promote people to people's relation, cultural relations, and I'm sure the demonstration today from the from the big screen show of the CMG, it demonstrated fantastic culture and the experience of Chinese people during this fantastic in the eve of the Chinese New Year, the New Year of the Dragon, which rips through, which demonstrate Chinese resilience and the strength going forward.”