Research On Jobbing Reality Shows In Generic Entertainment Television Ecosystem

Since the popular program Super Girl performed in Hunan TV in2005, we gotmuch surprise from it and, at the same time, the reality show became the most popularprogram style in China. Under the temptation of high ratings and generous returns inadvertising, CCTV and many other provincial satellites TV were involved in producingreality shows. And soon, the reality shows proliferate on Chinese television channels.When the talent shows have flooded and present useless, the appearance ofmatchmaking reality shows, especially You Are the One，moved the social hot topic,dating, to the TV screen to entertain the public. Just soon after the appearance ofmatchmaking programs, the jobbing reality shows, Job to Post to and Only You, whichare similar to You Are the One, are born one after another. Using the rising way of“blind date” to find a job has changed the serious workplace atmosphere, and also setoff a burst boom of watching jobbing reality shows. At that moment, Chinese TV screenwas filled with all sorts of matchmaking and jobbing reality shows, which were similarto each other. This is an era that can move the hot social issues such as dating andjob-hunting to the TV screen and then transform them into entertainment issues. And insuch a generic entertainment television ecosystem, jobbing reality shows will presentthe new characteristics.The origin of jobbing reality shows can be traced back to2000that Hunan TVlaunched the first intellectual television job-hunting program New Youth. And then,Chinese TV began to appear job-hunting programs. As two sets of large programAbsolute Challenge, which is about human resource, and business class reality showWin in China were performed in CCTV2, jobbing shows ushered the first mass favor.Academia began to study such programs. However, due to many problems, the fever ofsuch program has not continued for a long time. In the next few years, the jobbingshows were always keeping a low attitude in the tide of reality shows. Until the end of2010, Job to Post to, which was produced by China Education TV Channel and JiangsuTV, and It Had to Be You, which was produced by Tianjin TV were premiered, jobbingshows finally flourished. Each big TVs were all crazy to copy and imitate. Ningxia TVintroduced the program called Good Gays in Chinese workplace, Southeast TVintroduced Step by Step to Win, and Peking TV introduced Waiting for You. Although,these shows’ names were different, they had the same styles. The high ratings that theymade and the social issues that they explored have made these programs to be the public’s focus.This article tries to analyze the present problems that exist in jobbing reality shows,and I will choose the most typical shows, Job to Post to and Only You. I will analyze theshows’ core elements and characteristics from the shows’ development background;from the transmission level to analyze the result of the spreading of the shows and theirsocial values; from the brand level to analyze their brand building and the operation.These questions include fake information and speculation, narrow area of jobs andsimplex themes, serious homogenization and excessive entertainment, lack of feed bankand weak realization of brand and so on. Among all these issues, the most critical isfake information, speculation and excessive entertainment, for these three issues drivethe programs away from their original orientation of service, and make them lose theirown style in current entertainment TV. Actually, as long as a program functionalintention is clear, other problems concerning the content of the program and the runningissues can all be settled afterward, adjustments and innovation.After making some researches on the development in current situation and theexisting problems of the jobbing reality shows, we should forecast the prospects of suchshows and make some conclusions that if these shows want to get rid of the presentdilemma, it is urgent to specify the positioning of the progress themselves and makeappropriate balances between function and entertainment. The next step is to makeefforts on the contents and forms of the programs. It is also crucial to make someinnovations on the contents and forms. The core competitive power and substitutabilityof the show should be strengthened. Afterwards, it is essential to sharpen the advertisingof the show upon the basis which has been stated. In addition, we can’t ignore thesphere of the influence of the program. We should try our best to promote the jobbingreality shows.