China to name and shame lip-synching performers
BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - China will name and shame artists who lip-synch or engage in other "fake" acts at commercial concerts, with repeat offenders getting their performing licenses revoked, local media reported on Thursday, citing the Ministry of Culture.
China's Olympic organisers were lambasted by Internet users and in media reports after they admitted a nine-year-old girl lip-synched during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games, in place of the real singer who was rejected because of her appearance.
The Culture Ministry was seeking public opinion on a draft amendment to existing legislation on commercial performances that would ban lip-synching, the Beijing News said.
In China, amendments to legislation that reach the stage of seeking public opinion are generally already fixed, and are usually passed by China's rubber-stamp parliament with little or no change.
"Performers must not cheat audiences by lip-synching, and concert organizers must not arrange for performers to lip-synch," a draft amendment posted on the ministry's website (www.ccnt.gov.cn) said.
The names of performers caught lip-synching would be released to the public, and those caught twice in a year would have their performing licenses canceled, the paper said.
The draft also placed the onus on concert organizers to "dispatch personnel for supervision, to guard against lip-synching from happening."
A public outrage over lip-synching swept up Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi, who in February was accused of doing a shabby job of miming on the country's annual top-rating TV gala show screened on Chinese New Year's Eve.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Ken Wills and Miral Fahmy)
