AMONG THIS summer's television hits in China has been "Sisters Who Make Waves". The show involves 30 female celebrities over the age of 30 competing for a spot in a five-member band. Viewers watch them train, perform and live together (some of the contestants are pictured). Five hundred women, picked at random, get to vote for their favourite. Within three days of its airing in June, over 300m had watched the first episode on Mango tv, a streaming app owned by the state television network of Hunan, a central province. Social-media sites brim with praise from young feminists for these somewhat older role models: at last, a break from the devoted mothers and dewy-faced ingenues beloved of official broadcasters. Making waves is what Hunan Broadcasting System (HBS) does best. It is the most-watched television network after China Central Television (CCTV), the state broadcaster-and occasionally surpasses its ratings. That is striking for an outfit run by the government of a province that is better known as China's largest producer of rice and the birthplace of Mao Zedong-"red tourism" centred on Mao's formative haunts draws devotees of the chairman from around the country.
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