Chinese Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival, is the most important public holiday for the Chinese people.

On New Year's Eve, families have the tradition of staying up late into the night.

Ever since 1983, the Chinese have added watching the Spring Festival TV gala to their list of traditions.

But no Spring Festival TV gala has faced such heated debate as this year's.

Zha Mao Tu Zi says on weibo.com,

A huge generation gap is reflected by this year's Spring Festival TV gala! I watched it together with my parents and grandparents. While I was high on those jokes, my parents and grandparents saw nothing funny at all! They thought this year's TV gala was completely tasteless. And the weirdest part is - I don't know how to explain to them why those jokes are so funny!

He Cai Tou says on blog.sina.com,

As a post-1980's, I like this year's Spring Festival gala so much! It follows tightly on the taste of the younger generation. Lots of hot topics on the internet also got reflected in the TV gala of this year.

But media commentator Wu Tianxu shows his disagreement on yangtse.com,

This year's Spring Festival TV gala is full of "heavy taste" elements like the homosexual jokes and slang which can only be understood by the younger generation. Older people cannot catch their points at all. And the social phenomena reflected by these jokes cannot be easily accepted by them either. As a TV gala watched by audiences of all age groups, it shouldn't only follow the interest of the youth.

Playwright Shu Huan contributes his point of view on cqnews.net,

The most loyal fans of the CCTV Spring Festival gala are those above 40 years old. People at a younger age have more diversified means to consume their New Year's Eve, not necessarily by watching the TV gala. Organizers of Spring Festival gala should lay their emphasis on attracting the attention of people belonging to this age group rather than the younger generation.

Panda Miki writes on blog.ifeng.com,

It's true that this year's Spring Festival gala hit hot issues on microblogs and became a carnival for Chinese netizens. But we shouldn't forget hot issues on the internet don't necessarily equal to hot issues in society. Not all Chinese people are netizens, and even fewer of them have their own microblogs.

Directors of the Spring Festival gala should take a wider field of vision in deciding the content of shows on the TV gala.

(CRI Online)