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Abstract This paper discusses the factors that allowed Singing with Legends, a Chinese original television format, to successfully land in Spain despite being far from the country’s cultural geography by exploring what cultural shareabilities in the television format can cause Spanish audiences to resonate with them and what market fit mechanisms were involved in the landing of the first Chinese television format in a Western country.
Through textual analysis of Spanish audience comments on the YouTube for the adapted program，cultural commentaries of Chinese and Spanish media and in-depth interviews with the export team for this format at Shanghai Media Group, the research, which is based on the theories of cultural shareability and Product-Market Fit, reveals that Singing with Legends realizes cultural shareability in four areas, including the genre, theme, aesthetic, and role. The genre of music competitive variety is where the two primary global mainstream variety genres of music and competition converge, making it one of the most popular types of variety shows worldwide. The thematic resonance of intergenerational cooperation and classical new songs has been influenced by intergenerational discourse and classical re-creation, which serve as the universal emotional demands, successfully making intergenerational themes fit in the Spanish cultural gene. In terms of aesthetics, the shared pursuit of audience aesthetics in China and the West has produced the aesthetic appreciation of musical experience. Examples include the touch of chorus interpretation and the connection between music and personal emotions. Regarding roles, the adapted version maintained the significance of the professional and human qualities of the guests, therefore fulfilling the role-sharing of the allure of the archetypes of the guests. In a sense, the variety show has successfully blended Chinese culture into the shared values and exported it through localized adaptation.
Regarding market factors, the Spanish TV show industry has a huge audience as well as abundant resources, such as talents and production experiences. This program, whose topic is intergenerational collaboration, addresses the market vacuum caused by the parallels and differences between the Chinese and Western music variety show marketplaces. On the one hand, both China and Spain have a lengthy tradition of musical development. On the other hand, with the support of the innovative of celebrity reality show programs that have been popular in the East Asian market, Singing with Legends provides a unique and surprising experience to the Spanish audience from the perspective of intergenerational cooperation. In addition, the marketing of Singing with Legends in the space and time dimensions, including the program’s launch platform and publicity media, the prime time point, and the length of each program, has increased the reachable rate of the program’s Spanish audience while reducing the cultural discomfort.
However, the study didn’t identify the phenomenon of audience referencing from the comments of the Spanish audience, as the Spanish audience was unware that the format originated in China, so there were no further discussions on the original Chinese programs or the differences between the Chinese and Spanish versions. This could be due to the limited brand influence of Chinese original television formats. The export of Chinese original television formats failed to form scale effects, and there is a shortage of international talents for television format marketing. However, established TV exporting countries ,such as America and South Korea, have formed the audience around the world in terms of their familiarity with their formats. The overall industrial chain is relatively thorough, and their strong brand influence allows the audience in other countries to identify with the source of the formats and spark discussion. As a result, it is suggested that the Chinese producers focus more on exploring ocal values with universal applicability, expanding into untapped markets, maximizing the creation of global brands, and strengthening the supply chain to increase the global influence of Chinese original formats.
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Published: 20 May 2024
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