Upgrade rather than cancellation for CCTV’s concert series

The cancellation of CCTV’s popular touring concert series, The Same Song (同一首歌), reported by the mainland media late last week and covered in this post, now seems to be little more than a rumor.

The Beijing Times spoke to CCTV management and published a brief article on Saturday:

Rumors have been flying saying that CCTV’s flagship program The Same Song would be canceled after the National Day holiday. Yesterday, CCTV arts and entertainment center director Zhang Xiaohai said in an interview that no such cancellation would occur.

The program’s media coordinator Zhong Siqian explained said that The Same Song had not been canceled, and that CCTV-3 would broadcast “Lauding the Motherland in Yanzhou” at 7:30 on October 16, a program for the 60th anniversary for the People’s Insurance Company of China on October 23, and then a concert recorded in Wuhan.

According to earlier reports, the program was supposedly canceled after recording the Wuhan concert, so Zhong’s list of upcoming broadcasts is not iron-clad evidence against The Same Song’s cancellation.

However, more information came out over the weekend. From the Yangzi Evening News:

[Zhong Siqian] said, “Various conclusions and speculation stemming from a sponsor postponing the recording of the program in a particular location are unsupported by the facts. The production team plans out the recording of the program and is operating according to normal procedure. This is entirely unconnected to a cancellation. The preemption on October 9 for the Sino-Korean Concert was a tweak made by the general editorial department, which has made similar decisions in the past.” He stressed, “The Same Song is a registered trademark of CCTV and under no circumstances does it belong to the production team.”

Zhong’s last comment squelches rumors that The Same Song would jump ship to a competing network.

The Oriental Morning Post spoke to program producer Meng Xin, whose purported text-message, as reported by the Chengdu Business News, was the source of the rumor:

Yesterday, this reporter had an exclusive interview with Meng Xin, who had been dodging the media for several days. Reportedly, Meng was in Shanghai in preparation for an upcoming concert to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Shanghai Film Studio. Although she was unwilling to comment on the current status of The Same Song and its future with CCTV, she said that the Shanghai recording session would be an “upgraded edition” of the program that would be broadcast on CCTV-3 on November 20.

This reporter had learned of Meng’s unannounced arrival in Shanghai from an industry insider, and upon arriving at her hotel had found her seated on the sofa “armed to the teeth,” wearing a hat and dark glasses. She graciously accepted a request for an interview, but as for the rumors surrounding The Same Song’s possible cancellation, she was evasive: “Let’s not talk about The Same Song.” She insisted that she had not spoken to the media: “I never said anything like ‘Yes.’ I haven’t said anything about this situation.”

[…]

Reportedly, Meng Xin and her team had come to Shanghai yesterday to scout Chedun and other venues. She spoke about the theme of the concert: “You could call Shanghai the cradle of Chinese cinema, so I want to show the splendor of sixty years of the Shanghai Film Studio. It will definitely be a thrilling, moving concert.” She said that the concert would be different from previous ones: “You could call it an upgraded edition of The Same Song.” Did this mean that The Same Song would be entirely overhauled? Meng’s answer was ambiguous: “You could call it a new program.”

Was the initial erroneous report simply irresponsible journalism, or was something more sinister at work? Xinmin Evening News reports that some conspiracy-minded netizens see the hand of CCTV itself behind the curtain: the cancellation rumors were intended to spark interest in a program with declining ratings, and attract media attention to an upcoming series of special broadcasts.