The party’s definition of “entertainment shows” encompasses game shows, dating shows and celebrity talk shows. As in the West, they are cheap to produce but earn high ratings and advertising revenue, which is critical since stations get little or no government subsidies. Now, the new rules, which were announced in late October, are forcing television executives and producers at 34 satellite stations across China to cut many entertainment shows from their lineups to limit what regulators describe as “vulgar tendencies.”

The tightening of television is at the fore of a major new effort to control culture overseen by President Hu Jintao that is also permeating film, publishing, the Internet and the performing arts.

Government regulators issued the television guidelines right after the party’s Central Committee made culture and ideology the focus of a meeting in October. Mr. Yin, who advised officials in the prelude to the meeting, said cadres had originally intended to issue a paper that would push cultural industries closer to the market. But starting half a year ago, he said, senior officials began growing more worried about “social morality,” so they steered the policy toward the control of culture. Regarding television specifically, he said, “many old comrades” frequently complained about entertainment shows and “the idolizing of celebrities.”

Under the new rules, each television station can broadcast only two “entertainment shows” during prime time each week. Only nine can be shown nationally per night, down from an official estimate this fall of 126 per week. A panel convened by regulators will decide which ones will remain if the stations do not trim. Ideas for new shows must be approved by censors. Satellite stations are also expected to increase their news programming and broadcast at least one show that promotes traditional Chinese virtues and the “socialist core value system.”

The agency regulating the industry, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or Sarft, is not shy about imposing limits on dramas, either. Last year, it expressed disapproval of spy dramas and time-travel shows. In late November, it surprised the industry by mandating that as of January, commercials cannot be shown in the middle of television dramas. “The whole point here is that Sarft is trying to get TV station presidents back to the roots,” said a person once involved with “If You Are the One,” who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “What are the roots? TV is supposed to be the mouthpiece of the party in the country. You’re supposed to broadcast propaganda instead of sensationalistic content.”

Image SENSATIONAL REJECTION "I'd rather cry in a BMW," Ma Nuo famously told one man on "If You Are the One." Credit... Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

The Role of Money

Reining in television is not just ideological, but is also tied to advertising money, people in the industry contend. Officials at Sarft are close to those at China Central Television, or CCTV, the state-run television network that is the largest in the country. CCTV still dominates the industry, but it has ceded market share to provincial satellite stations because they are producing the most popular entertainment shows. CCTV and Sarft have a revolving-door relationship: In November, a former vice minister of Sarft, Hu Zhanfan, took over as president of CCTV. The network also remits a fraction of its annual revenue to Sarft. From 2001 to 2005, it gave the agency $675 million, according to statistics from CCTV. By contrast, provincial stations remit revenue to local authorities, who have little incentive to censor successful shows.