You can’t keep up with the entertainment industry in China and miss “Dashan” (大山). Almost a household name since the late 1980’s he is the epitome of a foreigner gaining fame in China. It seems he is more popular in China than Brad Pitt is in the US.
His exploits are mostly limited to Beijing, but that does not stop his fame from reaching all across China. As most foreign guys can probably attest to, we have all been compared to Dashan at one point or another while in China. Mostly along the lines of: “He doesn’t speak Chinese as well as Dashan!”
In 1988, the man who would become “Dashan” (literal translation - “big mountain”) was living in a foreign student dorm at Beijing University when he was first invited before the cameras to cohost a major student talent show. Legend has it that it was only when strangers greeted him in the street the next day that he realised it had gone out live - in fact 550 million people had been watching nationwide, and Rowswell had just become the first foreign host of a major event in Chinese television history.
Back in the US or Canada, there is probably no chance of someone like Mark Roswell gaining the fame he has in China. His main draw is the fact that he speaks perfect Chinese. In fact, better than many locals! I don’t want to bring in what this says about the locals, but this opinion is theirs, not mine! In short this means that while he is “world famous” in China, this does not really transfer past it’s borders. Don’t expect Mark Roswell to be a name you see on any US produced TV shows or movies anytime soon.
The article goes on to explain well the mass of the TV industry in China:
China boasts the largest TV audience in the world, thanks in part to a communist infrastructure that saw TV as a means of direct communication with a vast population. Today, state broadcaster CCTV claims an audience of more than 1 billion; content comes courtesy of some 200 stations, offering viewers a total of 2,900 channels.
And as the Chinese economy whips itself into ever better shape, TV is becoming increasingly commercial, says Chris Gelken, a UK journalist who has recently completed a three-year stint in the country as news anchor with English-language station CCTV9. “Competition for advertising dollars is driving a fierce ratings war,” he says, referring to an industry reportedly already worth $3.4bn a year.
As a result, where once the programming agenda was dictated by an ever-shifting party line, these days programme makers are far more attuned to ratings - and consequently, sandwiched between imperialist-baiting war movies and old-school news reports from the factory floor, glossy melodramas now document the movements of the new urban middle class, playing out their lives over branded cups of Nescafé.
I am not sure where these 2900 channels are, but I certainly get no more than about 40 on my Chinese cable service! Perhaps they mean through illegal satellite channels? It is interesting to note how the shift is occurring now from a governmentally dictated lineup to more ratings oriented content, as the stations battle for advertising dollars. This is a step in the right direction away from tight government regulation and towards freedom for producers.