TV hosts channel hope on the home front with new series

No studio. No makeup artists. No expensive equipment to ensure broadcast quality. No bright lights. No hand signals telling you the countdown to live on-air transmission. TV show host He Jiong is breaking new ground－at home.

With a small video device set up in his living room at his residence in Changsha, Central China’s Hunan province, He sits on a carpet. Without makeup, chic outfits or his colleagues, He, wearing casual clothes and a pair of black-framed glasses, starts to talk to camera.

“It feels very strange,” says the host, when he was first told to make the show.

“When I was told about recording a new TV show a few days ago, I doubted it would work since we are supposed to stay at home to avoid exposure to the virus. Then my colleagues told me that the new TV show will be made at home.

“Soon my doorbell rang and I got a delivery box, which had a video recorder and scripts in it.”

That was the beginning of the TV show, Hey! What Are You Doing?, produced by Hunan Satellite TV Station, which premiered on Feb 7.

On the show, He, one of the most popular TV hosts in the country, with more than 100 million followers on Chinese micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo, invites several Chinese pop stars, actors and actresses, to join him via the internet.

They share their daily routines and how they spend their time during the ongoing novel coronavirus outbreak, such as doing exercises to keep fit at home and cooking together with their parents. The show also features other popular hosts, including Du Haitao and Li Weijia.

While some fans are drawn to the new show for its innovative approach, many other fans also share their homebound routines online, as well as offering encouragement for China’s fight against the epidemic.

“Life goes on, though we face difficulties caused by the viral outbreak,” wrote a fan, who watched the new TV show. “I’ve been following the news about the virus every day,” shared another. “The show brings laughter, which makes me relaxed.”

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