Since the Spring Festival Gala on CCTV was established in the 1980s, it has been confirmed to be a huge success by attracting most audience in China. On the Eve of the Spring Festival, numerous Chinese will sit in front of the television screens looking forward to enjoy the annual celebration.
In modern China, watching the gala is still a traditional way to celebrate Chinese lunar New Year. However, the Gala seems to be suffering from declining rates of audience over the past few years. Actually, the Gala is never the only option any more when competing with several local televisions, which provide better possible choices. In addition, it is criticized that the traditional items of the Gala fail to appeal to people’s changing appetite, particularly the younger generation. Although the famous stars from Hong Kong and Taiwan are highly expected to add some freshness and modern elements to the performance, the Gala are still somewhat disappointing, far away from splendid. Consequently, the Gala is advocated to be cancelled due to its declination of reputation as well as the stereotyped content.
From my point of view, the Spring Festival Gala on CCTV should be still reserved because it is really good at creating a very colorful holiday atmosphere. Besides, it does have at least one or two excellent performance every year some of which become indelible memories. If the Gala can be redesigned to enrich its performance further, it will get away from being mediocre. But it is unnecessary to expect achieving its previous success. After all, the time has changed.