The disappearing Hong Tao of "Singer 2024" deeply reveals the inside story of the frequent explosion of mango variety shows

Entertainment Spring and Autumn

2024-05-28 09:01Posted in Beijing Entertainment Creators

Where did Hong Tao go?

After a 4-year absence, "Singer 2024" is still the pinnacle of music comprehensive. The first issue exploded and drove the share price of Supermedia, the parent company of Mango TV, to rise.

However, in the opening and end credits, there is no trace of Hong Tao, the creator of the "Singer" series. The name Hong Xiao is clear at a glance.

At the beginning of the first issue, Hong Xiao, who was called "Brother Xiao" by Na Ying, what is the origin? What is the relationship between him and Hong Tao?

In fact, during this period, there is a change and replacement of the talent echelon of Mango variety shows.

Na Ying greeted Hong Xiao in the show.

Variety shows have always been the core competitiveness of Hunan Satellite TV (including Mango TV). For example, "Singer 2024", although controversial, as soon as it was broadcast, it showed the strong strength of Mang's department in the production of variety show content.

Similar to the "Singer" series, Mang's department is good at creating "evergreen" variety shows, "Happy Camp" has been on the air for 24 years (it will be stopped in 2021), "Everyday Upward" has lasted for 14 years, and "Star Detective" has been broadcast for nine seasons now. "The Great Escape Room" has been launched for 5 consecutive seasons. "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" (renamed "Riding the Wind" in 2023) has also been done for 5 seasons so far. In addition to the "evergreen" variety show, Mango also has many masterpieces in the tracks of music variety, fan variety, workplace, marriage and love.

Since Hunan Satellite TV launched the "studio" system in 2018, 12 teams with producers as the core have been established. The "Hong Xiao Studio", which created the "Singer 2024" series, was established during this period. That year, Mango TV was led by He Chen and Shan Danxia (Wu Mengzhi, who created "Sister Lang", served as the general manager of the variety show team), and 17 program teams formed a four-level management system of independent studios, S-level teams, A-level teams, and start-up teams.

In 2023, after the integration of Hunan Satellite TV and Mango TV's dual platforms, there will be a total of 56 variety show teams in the Mango system. The "horse race" mechanism allowed variety show producers to start a "civil war". It is under this kind of "wolf fighting" that mango-based variety shows can continue to come out of the circle. 

-Hong Family Class-

Back to the question at the beginning, where did Hong Tao go? What does it have to do with Hong Xiao?

In a word, Hong Xiao is Hong Tao's "apprentice".

In "Singer 2024", He Jiong drank water, Haiquan wore glasses, and sang tickets, which became the point for Hong Xiao to pay tribute to Hong Tao. "Although he is not in the rivers and lakes, there is still his legend", Hong Tao's status in the show "Singer" is self-evident.

So, where did the mentor-apprentice relationship between the two come from?

Hong Tao is not surnamed Hong, his real name is He Hong. His journey into the industry can also be called a drama.

Before joining Hunan Radio and Television, Hong Tao worked as a technician in the No. 2 Radio Factory in Zhuzhou City, Hunan. He has loved music since he was a child, and the first thing he does every time he gets paid is to buy a cassette tape. So much so that when he entered the Hunan Economic Radio Station in 1991, he found that the music materials in the unit were not as much as his own.

The characteristics of a music enthusiast made him quickly become the most popular anchor among Hunan listeners.

In 1998, Hunan Radio and Television launched the first round of reform, and Hong Tao's former colleague Wang Ping (the main director of "Super Girl") was transferred from the radio to Hunan Satellite TV. Two years later, at her invitation, Hong Tao also entered Hunan Satellite TV and became the executive producer of the music program "Music Continues".

At this time, the Chinese music scene was in its heyday, and the program attracted many well-known singers from across the Taiwan Strait, such as Jay Chou, Karen Mok, Zhang Xinzhe, Yu Chengqing, Lin Zhixuan, Yu Quan, Han Hong, Sun Nan, etc. Many of these powerful singers also appeared on the stage of "I Am a Singer" later. Hong Tao's "accumulation and accumulation" also began from this.

In addition to attracting singers, the positioning of "continuous music, continuous good songs" has also attracted many fans, and its sister program "Music Continues Singers" has also been a great success. "Music Continues" has been on the air for 5 years and has accumulated more than 20,000 members from all over the country. Members can go to the scene to watch the singer club, and also have the opportunity to interact with the singers on the same stage. It is not difficult to understand why the public judges of "I Am a Singer" can also become one of the highlights.

The effective interaction between the program team and the audience has been started as early as the period of "Music Continues". From "Music Continues" to "I Am a Singer", Hong Tao can be described as "sharpening a sword in ten years".

After "Music Continues", he has successively operated many well-known music programs such as "Dance Miracle" and "Challenge the Microphone", but Hong Tao, who has been behind the scenes, is not known. Until 2013, "I Am a Singer" was born.

Different from the previous music variety programs, the chief director came to the stage to announce the ranking, which became part of the program, and even occupied 20% of the time. Hong Tao's reading of the rankings is the most nervous part of the singers. Hong Tao is always in the most critical part of the show, drinking water, or reading the title of the gold master, or letting the singers guess each other's rankings. He used the way to satisfy his appetite, so that the audience and the singers unconsciously entered a state of anxious waiting, and made the dramatic conflict of the ticket recording session one of the highlights of the show.

"It (reading out the rankings) creates a sense of story and drama." Hong Tao said in an interview.

Hong Tao not only created a lot of music comprehensives, but also honed a "Hong family class".

The success of the first season of "I Am a Singer" not only depends on the control of the chief director Hong Tao, but also the core participants behind it, including producer Du Yan, executive director Hong Xiao, and chief screenwriter Sun Li. These three later ushered in the time of taking the lead alone.

In fact, as early as 2007, Hong Xiao joined Hong Tao's team, and Hong Tao also cultivated with heart, in the first season of "I Am a Singer", Hong Xiao participated in the production as the head of the director team. After Hong Tao became popular, Hong Xiao's name was often closely linked.

This is the starting point for them to become "master and apprentice" - as a craft work, the variety show industry actually pays attention to the relationship between "master and apprentice". Therefore, although many directors seem to be independent, they are often inextricably linked in the background.

In 2017, "I Am a Singer" was renamed "Singer", and the title of chief director Hong Tao became "producer". This change of identity means that Hong Tao will not directly participate in the first-line production, and according to the official information, in July of that year, Hong Tao served as the assistant director of the new Hunan Satellite TV channel.

Since that year, Hong Xiao has taken over as the chief director of "Singer", and has been in charge of "Singer" for 4 consecutive years (2017-2019), as well as the "Year of Fighting" in 2020. But although Hong Xiao's authority has been expanded in these seasons, the actual soul is still Hong Tao.

In 2019, Hong Tao was promoted to deputy director of Hunan Satellite TV Channel, and it can be said that he has since entered the core decision-making level of Hunan Satellite TV and embarked on the road of official career. At the Hunan Satellite TV Investment Conference in 2020, Hong Tao announced that "Singer" would not be done. After 8 years, the ace of the music comprehensive is temporarily away from the stage.

In 2021, "Who is the Treasure Singer" became Hong Tao's finale. is completely different from "Singer", the show does not eliminate or advance, it is a show that focuses on the music itself and provides a stage for the treasure singers.

That year, Hong Tao was transferred to the Hunan Radio and Television Art Committee. This is an idle position, and he is about to be in his sixties, and it is time for him to retire. In the future, it remains to be seen whether Hong Tao will come out on his own.

However, the "Hong Family Gang" can also be regarded as branching out, occupying a place in the variety shows inside and outside Mango. 

Fanxia on the stage of "Singer 2024".

-Baton-

If you want to say that the variety show creator who has entered the official career, Hong Tao is not the first and not the most successful. In Mango, the most successful variety artist in the transformation management position is actually Song Dian.

Song Dian is one of the founders and first directors of the former national variety show "Happy Camp", and is currently the director of Hunan Satellite TV, which is the third person in the Hunan Radio and Television System. It is said that Song Dianren, as his name, is known as the "King of Ideas", although his position is very high, he has a very strong affinity and can often mingle with the front line.

Of course, Song Dian has long been on the front line, if you start from his generation, it will be too long, but since he has descended, the Mango variety show echelon has handed over the baton from generation to generation.

So, back to the Hongtao team.

In 2018, when Hong Tao was obsessed with his career, his team was split into two studios - independently operated by An Desheng and Hong Xiao. Anderson once participated in the creation of "Variety Show", and after the establishment of the studio, he launched the folk song competition program "Spring Flowers Will Bloom". The following year, Hong Xiao released "Dance Storm", which was a great success.

From 2022 onwards, Hong Xiao has launched "The Sound of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Season", "The Sound of the Treasure Island Season" and "The Sound of the Endless Family" for 3 consecutive years, which has achieved a good reputation and changed the situation of the lack of high-quality audio comprehensives after the suspension of Hunan Satellite TV's "Singer".

Different from Hong Xiao's sound comprehensive route, Andesheng found another way. He focused on the immersive stage of the performance, and launched programs such as "City of Fantasy" and "Spring Flowers Will Bloom" in the mode of "singing". Although the market response of these two programs was not as expected, they created a new model of music comprehensive. Not only expanded the territory, but also created the other two programs "Variety Big Coffee Show" and "All Acceleration", and Andersheng also continued to run.

If you say, Hunan Satellite TV's "Singer" program is a heritage with a strip of water. Then, Mango TV's "Mystery" category "Star Detective" (later changed to "Great Detective") and "Escape Room" are temporary replacements.

"Star Detective" and "Escape Room" are created by the well-known team "Box Studio" of Mango TV, and the first to sixth seasons are the partners of "Double He" (He Chen and He Shu). The IP has not only opened up a fan variety track for Mango TV, but also won a good reputation for the derivative variety show "Detective Academy", in addition, the offline entity industry and e-commerce products are constantly expanding the value of the "Ming Detective" IP.

Mango TV also attaches great importance to He Chen, not only appointing her as the deputy general manager of the program center, but also as the director of Mango Entertainment. However, in August 2021, the members of the box studio resigned en masse and established Hunan Detective Rishang Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd. According to the equity composition, in February 2022, the new shareholder, Guangxi Tencent Venture Capital Co., Ltd., held about 23.53% of the shares.

In other words, He Chen led the box studio to "switch" to the new owner Tencent. In May of the same year, the new program "Let's Start Reasoning" created by the box team landed on Tencent Video, forming a confrontation posture with Mango TV's fan comprehensive.

In 2022, although it was dug into a corner by Tencent, Mango TV still hopes to retain the two major IPs of "Ming Detective" and "Secret Escape". Especially the new season of the show has completed the investment, which can be said to be on the bow. Soon, the new producer Yan Ji came on the road - as the executive producer of the first to third seasons of "Star Detective", he is all too familiar with the show and is the most suitable person.

After leaving "Star Detective" in 2018, Yan Ji began to serve as the producer of "True Adventure" and "Mango Night of Youth", and in 2019, he launched the "Daughters' Love" series. In addition, Yan Ji also served as the executive director of the first season of "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves", and formed an executive producer team with Ming Aiqing (representative work "Dad's Home" series) and Ling Sheng (representative work "Brother Who Overcame Thorns").

After 4 years of absence, Yan Ji took over again after 4 years of "Ming Detective", but Yan Ji's firefighting did not gain a good reputation. Many viewers said that the seventh season "changed its taste", not only was the "six-season veteran" Sa Beining absent, but the show also changed from the positioning of star reasoning to the feeling of Internet law popularization, and the show's score on Douban also hit the lowest score of 7.8 since the seven seasons.

After receiving all the criticism and absorbing the opinions of the audience, the Yanji team quickly adjusted the content settings. When the eighth season was launched, not only did word-of-mouth rebound, but it also hit a high score of 9.2 on Douban.

In addition to taking over the baton of "Ming Detective", Yan Ji Studio is also constantly innovating in the maze track, with "Forest Evolution" in 2023 and "Rubik's Cube New World" in 2024, pushing the "high-intelligence showdown" to the peak.

In 2023, Hunan Satellite TV and Mango TV will launch the integration of dual platforms, proposing a promotion path of "team-studio-super studio-subsidiary". The offense and defense in the Maze Zong track have also upgraded Yanji Studio to "Yanji Super Studio".

Another super studio newly established in the same year is the "Good Six Super Studio" formed by the merger of Hunan Satellite TV's original Liu Wei ("Happy Camp" team) studio and Liu Jianjian's studio (the main creative team of "Good Life" and "We All Love to Laugh").

He Chen, who created the "Ming Detective" IP

-Exodus and Integration-

He Chen, who created the IP of "Ming Detective", is the "No. 1 employee" of Mango TV's variety show production department, and her departure is indeed a loss for a platform that has only been around for 10 years. However, looking at the entire Hunan Radio and Television, the flow of content talents in the past 20 years is not an exception.

Before the establishment of Mango TV, most of the content talents in the Mango Department were concentrated in the channel with Hunan Satellite TV as the core. The first wave of talent flow on Mango TV was initially carried out by channels and companies within the radio and television system, and the limitations of terrestrial channels made many excellent producers look for the possibility of "programs on the stars".

For example, Zhang Yibei's team, which created "The More Strategy, the Happier You Are" in Hunan Economic Television, jumped to Hunan Satellite TV and founded "Everyday Upward". In 2014, she left her job and worked in Canxing, Star TV and other companies, and cooperated with Youku to create "Beautiful Boy Academy". But after 8 years of going around and around, Zhang Yibei will still choose to return to Mango TV again in 2022, in her words: "If you don't leave home, you won't feel people's cognition of bloodline and ethnicity." ”

After his return, Zhang Yibei launched a program focusing on classical Chinese aesthetics "Beautiful Years Internet Society", which won a good reputation in the industry.

In addition to Zhang Yibei, there are also "Super Female Godmother" Long Danni. At the beginning of 2000, Hunan Economic Television created influential talent shows such as "Absolute Man" and "Star Academy", which are considered to be the prototypes of the follow-up "Super Girl" and "Fast Man".

But "only Hunan people know" and the dilemma of "always being borrowed" made Long Danni disheartened. At the beginning of 2006, Long Danni, who was already the deputy editor-in-chief of Hunan Economic Television, jumped to Dragon TV and created the popular talent show "Come on! Good Boy". Long Danni's departure made the high-level extremely regretful, and they did not hesitate to chase talents for thousands of miles and invited Long Danni back to Hunan.

In 2007, Long Danni's team began to operate "Happy Boys", and in 2008, she became the general manager of Tianyu Media, becoming a professional manager in the entertainment industry, and opened up new businesses such as artist derivatives and film and television drama investment. At the company's annual meeting in 2017, Long Danni announced that her contract would expire and she would not renew her contract with Tianyu. In April of the same year, she founded Wow Haw Haw Wow.

After starting her own business, the first project she launched was "Tomorrow's Son" co-created with Tencent Video, and Mao Buyi made her debut in this show.

Long Danni is an iconic figure in the field of mango variety shows, although she left, a small publicity she brought during the "Supergirl" period stayed in Mango in the future to shine.

She is Wu Mengzhi, who created "Sister Lang".

Wu Mengzhi, who is known as the "million copywriter" of Mango Channel, followed Long Danni at the beginning of his career, and was a propagandist in the "Supergirl" project, and stayed in Tianyu Media and Hunan Satellite TV, but in the end he did not choose to start a business with his former boss, but entered Mango TV.

Wu Mengzhi was first known to the public because the copywriting of the third season of "Flowers and Youth" in 2017 was out of the circle, and since then he has entered the upward channel of his career. However, what made her famous was "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" created in 2020. The first season was led by Wu Mengzhi, and He Chen and Yan Ji Studios jointly worked on it, and the first season exploded. Therefore, Wu Mengzhi has also entered the senior management sequence, and his current position is the vice president of Mango TV and the general manager of the variety show production department.

In fact, since Hunan Radio and Television founded Mango TV in 2014, it has started the migration of content talents from Taiwan to the Internet. Liu Le, the former senior director of "Happy Camp", entered Mango TV and created the series "Goodbye Lover" and "Spring Delay and Departure Again" (especially "Goodbye Lover" once became a phenomenal program); Zhao Wenhai, the former director of "Sound Immersion", formed his own team on Mango TV and launched the "We in the Workplace" series, as well as the latest "Little Bear Garden".

In any case, there was still a clear distinction between Hunan Satellite TV and Mango TV teams before, or even if there was cooperation, there was a lot of competition. The ownership of the IP independently created by the platform is very clear.

However, in 2022, "integration" has become the keyword of the two major platforms of the Mangs, and the flow of talents or IP has also begun to intensify. In 2023, "Sister Lang" will be upgraded to "Riding the Wind", and the dominance will be transferred from Mango TV to Hunan Satellite TV, led by Ren Yang, the producer of "Sound into the Heart", in an attempt to continue the life cycle of this IP. "Riding the Wind 2023" is remarkable, but this year, when it hits "Singer 2024", the volume is much weaker.

Of course, there are also many people who have completely left Hunan Radio and Television like Long Danni. Xie Dikui, the chief director of the "Where Are You Going, Dad" series, left his post in 2013 and established DRA Media. But the road to entrepreneurship is not as easy to walk as imagined, in March 2016, the first online variety show after entrepreneurship was launched. Big Star", despite the presence of big stars, the word-of-mouth and response were mediocre. "Think of a way! "Dad" was finalized and withdrawn several times, and finally ended without a problem due to policy reasons, and has not been broadcast so far.

In 2017, when Hong Xiao took over the direction of "Singer", producer Du Yan and chief screenwriter Sun Li (also one of the directors) both left Hunan Satellite TV, and the following year they joined Tencent Video to launch the girl group development reality show "Creation 101".

After that, Sun Li established Haofeng Qingyun alone, and received investment from Tencent in October 2019, and the "create" prefix draft variety show was her handiwork. Duyan established Seven-Dimensional Power, such as Dragon TV's "La La Land" in 2022, which is produced by the company.

In 2024, coinciding with the tenth year of the launch of "Flowers and Youth", it was Liao Ke who created this series, but he only did two seasons, and left his job in 2016 to start a business, and established "Can Media" with Liu Yi, the former secretary of Ouyang Changlin and deputy director of the editor-in-chief office of Hunan Satellite TV, and later created "Tmall Festival" and "Douyin Wonderful Night". Liao Ke entered the industry very early, and became the producer of "Supergirl" in 2004, so some people are aggrieved that he is not called the "father of Supergirl" (most people think that Zhang Huali, the former head of Mango, is the "father of Supergirl", and Long Danni is the "godmother").

For producers who grew up in the mango ecosystem, whether to stay or run away is a life choice. However, for the audience, the content ecology of talent flow may be healthier.

After all, after experiencing the test and fight of the market, the wolf creators who survive can provide more diversified content choices.

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Personal opinion, for reference only