Guan Zhengwen, the director of the Dictation Assembly of Chinese Characters and Chinese Idiom Congress, was named Director of the Year.

The weekly program, Chinese Idiom Congress, aired by CCTV won the title "Cultural Program of the Year" at the 8th annual Variety Program Awards held in Beijing on March 22. Guan Zhengwen, the director of the popular Dictation Assembly of Chinese Characters and Chinese Idiom Congress, was named Director of the Year.

"The award signals the recognition for cultural programs," Guan said. "The biggest competitors of cultural programs are the entertainment ones in the media market, and the former doesn’t have an advantage." He said the creation of a cultural show is hard when the audience prefers to watch celebrities and have fun.

Chinese Idiom Congress combines the traditional pattern of competition and popular quiz games. The program includes more than 2,000 Chinese idioms, with various background knowledge, such as ancient Chinese mythology, historic stories, literature classics, folk colloquialism and borrowed words, attached. Over 30,000 people applied and more than 300 selected contestants participated in the competition.

Guan pointed out that the high audience ratings of the Chinese Idiom Congress proves that cultural programs have a longer life cycle compared with entertainment because they have higher and more stable social values.

"In terms of business operation and market competition, it’s hard for many cultural programs to survive," Guan said. He stressed that in China many TV programs produced in recent years died early once they were aired. While some classic programs in the western countries have run for more than 30 years, there are very few that last for long in China.

"The value of a program doesn't only rely on the viewership rate in a short term, but also on the time span that it can maintain its audience in the long run," Guan said.