Why 'Desperate Housewives' flopped in China

Opinion / Raymond Zhou

 Why 'Desperate Housewives' flopped in China
By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-12-31 07:09

'Desperate Housewives' has bombed in China.

The American soap opera debuted on CCTV8 on December 19 and ran for a
week, covering the whole first season. The practice of airing three
back-to-back episodes each night was meant to satisfy the Chinese
appetite of gobbling up serial drama, but may have left little time for
digestion as a consequence, as some argued.

The slot of 10 pm through 1 am is designated for foreign fare since
primetime is reserved for domestic shows. That basically winnows out
casual viewers and early risers, leaving only rabid fans and night owls.

The protectionist measure can be justified to an extent, but may go
against commercial interests: Why should I put a hit show into the
late-night line-up when it could have attracted a much larger audience?

Preliminary results show that this award-winning series garnered a
ratings point of 0.5, compared with the usual 3-4 points for this time
slot. In the United States, it was the most watched new series when it
was first launched in October 2004 and, despite some erosion, has been
comfortably in the top-10 league. Around the world in 202 territories, it
has been setting ratings record here and there, hitting the number one
spot in countries as diverse as Germany, South Africa and Singapore.

So, how come a runaway hit ended up running aground in the largest
potential market in terms of viewership?

Besides the inconvenient time slot, some criticize the dubbing for
purging the original flavour from the dialogue. (Chinese dubbing actists
tend to have perfect but homogeneous voices and exaggerated reading, they
say.)

The trimming of a few scenes has also been singled out as a culprit, but
the authorities in charge explained there was very little censorship
except for the toning down of some racy lines.

While all these factors might matter, they do not shed light on the most
fundamental cultural discrepancy. Just look at South Korean soaps
similarly scheduled. They have been delivering ratings many times that of
'Desperate Housewives', turning legions of nine-to-fivers into nighthawks
and creating Monday morning blues every morning.

Ultimately, it's the show that matters. To put it bluntly, "Housewives"
does not have a demographic fit in the Chinese market. True, it is high
in quality and has suspense, thrill and murder as plot hooks to entice a
wider audience. But a typical television viewer in China is not someone
well-versed in Western arts and literature, mesmerized by parallel
narratives and ingenious tracking shots. It is usually someone with no
advanced education but simply wants to kick off her shoes and relax after
a hard day's work.

The show's fanfare was whipped up by media types exposed to Western
reports and who have probably already seen it on DVD pirated more or
less. As a matter of fact, many people who tuned in to CCTV but found the
dubbing or scheduling annoying eventually saw the airing as a teaser,
turning to the DVD market for the whole nine yards.

These young urbanites may make up a decent market segment for many
product categories. But television being a mass entertainment platform,
it cannot depend solely on the opinion leaders. Rather, it needs a bigger
turnout willing to get on the ride.

For one thing, American serials like "Desperate Housewives", with their
witty innuendoes and multiple twists, are too fast-paced for Chinese
taste. Some viewers complained they would get lost with the plot after a
bathroom break. But with South Korean soaps, even if you skip three
episodes, you can still follow the story lines.

On a deeper level, life on Wisteria Lane, the fictional California
community in Housewives, is too far removed from ordinary Chinese, even
the burgeoning middle class. A Chinese teenager would never, in her right
mind, advise her single mother on the etiquette of dating. When Chinese
housewives get into an adulterous mood, they would not turn to teenaged
gardeners, who are usually migrant workers in rags, but to people with
deeper pockets and higher ranks. A Chinese woman may act as fastidious as
Bree Van De Kamp, but she would not take on the arch-conservative stance
of an American Republican. A Chinese super-mom, in a country with family
planning policy encouraging for one child, faces challenges very
different from tending four unruly kids.

Simply put, the show fails to connect with the vast number of television
viewers here because it implicitly requires prior knowledge of the US
middle-class lifestyle, exaggerated for dramatic effect of course. That
shouldn't dampen the enthusiasm of those who crave for quality
programming, but its target audience shrinks from the culturally curious
to the culturally adventurous.

E-mail: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/31/2005 page4)

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