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The CCTV New Year’s gala broadcast, known in Mandarin as Chunwan, is probably the most massive media event you’ve never heard of: with an audience of 700 million, it has few rivals for sheer reach A China Central Television institution since 1982, the show provides an annual bromide of light-hearted comedy, music, and choreographed patriotism on the eve of the country’s most important festival In a nation reeling from frenetic development and riven by social tensions, it’s a reminder of the cultural ties that bind (most of) China together This year, Chunwan rings in the Year of the Rabbit on the evening of 2 February But even in China, this throwback to a bygone era of modernist spectacle is not immune to larger shifts in the way we consume media The show is losing its younger viewers: according to a recent online poll on Sinacom, 50 percent of respondents who saw the show called it ‘bad,’ while only 13 percent said it was ‘good’ It seems that colourful ethnic minority maidens singing about social harmony just don’t cut it any more for the post-‘80s generation Alarmed over declining ratings, broadcasters have turned to the internet for the first time this year to infuse new life into the old Chunwan beast, planning to draw several musical performers from the online ‘grassroots’ CCTV and other Chinese media have long had a troubled relationship with the 380 million ‘netizens’ who comprise China’s online population Of course, this comes as no surprise to those familiar with the overall status of internet speech in China A small army of censors regularly scrub references to sensitive topics like Falun Gong, Tibet and Liu Xiaobo from bulletin boards Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, among other social networking platforms, are blocked: in this visualisation of global Facebook connections, there’s a conspicuous hole where China should be Historically, censors have also intervened to halt the careers of apparently harmless internet celebrities, which China produces in spades With a massive online population isolated by the so-called Great