Spring Festival Gala director: It’s more than a show

World
Europe

There were many moments that made the Spring Festival Gala on Feb. 15 special – the duet between beloved singers Faye Wong and Na Ying, who sang "Years" together for the first time in two decades, and pop singer Joy Chou's performance – all stood out as highlights.

The annual event attracted over 800 million viewers for the four-hour long program. But behind the scenes, the show takes an incredible amount of planning. For Yang Dongsheng, the director of the Gala, the event is much more than a show, but what he describes as "a company."

One of the key considerations for this year's event was finding ways to attract a younger audience. "For this reason, a group of young film and TV stars were specially arranged to debut at this year’s Spring Festival Gala,” said Yang.

“If we cannot make it interesting for young people, only for the middle-aged and elderly, wouldn’t you say this was a problem? So we decided to invite whoever young people like,” Yang added.

Making a show for China's 1.42 billion people is a task in itself, but finding ways to make sure it appeals to everyone was another big task for Yang.

“In designing the programs, we have to consider all the factors and acknowledge that no dish suits all tastes. We always say this is art and art should 'let a hundred flowers bloom and new things emerge from the old,'” Yang added.

The annual Spring Festival Gala in China is a tightly-scripted show televised to an estimated 800 million viewers. Guinness World Records in 2012 said the show had 498.7 million unique viewers, making it the globe’s “Most Watched National Network TV Broadcast.”

By contrast, the audience for this year’s NFL Super Bowl, typically the most-watched show in the US, was 103.4 million viewers, according to NBC.