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Uwechue Emmanuel, a former Nigerian engineer and pub singer, appeared on Xing Guang Da Dao, one of China's most popular TV reality shows, in 2006. Several months later, he stepped onto the stage of China's Spring Festival gala and performed for the world's largest television audience.

That is the power of reality TV programming in China. And it can do more than simply catch people's attention - the market's present hit, I Am a Singer, expects to earn 50 million yuan ($8 million) from advertising for the season finale alone.

Reality TV shows are widely seen as a highly successful branch of China's still-developing cultural industries. Such shows give contestants the chance to pursue their dreams, and nurture the hopes of performers and those seeking a career in TV broadcasting.

A new record

This year, a new reality singing competition, I Am a Singer, has risen to the top of reality TV programming in China. An instant hit, the show has sparked heated discussion on the Internet and earned top ratings since its premiere on January 18.

Both television broadcasting professionals and passionate fans are looking forward to seeing the show break the ratings record set only five months ago by The Voice of China, another popular reality TV singing competition.

Hundreds of millions of viewers were in fact witnessing a television miracle. The Voice of China was developed and produced in less than six months, and soon rewarded its investors with a 300-percent return on their initial investments.

The Voice of China first drew attention to the incredible power of China's TV industry, but reality TV shows have actually aired on Chinese television channels for years. In the summer of 2005, Super Girl, a talent show for young women, took the country by storm, drawing the largest audience in Chinese television history. The winner, Li Yuchun, a 21-year-old college student, became an icon in China, and was later on the cover of Time, a U.S. magazine, for an article about Asian heroes.

Since then, Chinese TV producers have not stopped exploring the potential and commercial power of reality TV. But Super Girl's incredibly high rating's record was not broken until The Voice of China premiered in 2012.

The reality talent shows are based on judges selecting singers through blind auditions, and includes a suspenseful battle phase and fabulous live performances.

"In terms of content, it [The Voice of China] is by no means new. It's still a talent show offering people the chance to fulfill their dreams. Strictly speaking, it is not creative," said Yue Guangpeng, an expert on television broadcasting. "In fact, I think media do not create new content. But they create new forms."

A new style

Professionals believe that the show's success is attributable to a new collaborative arrangement between the show's production company and the TV station that broadcasts it.

The whole idea of The Voice of China came from Canxing Productions, a Chinese production company that produces most of the popular TV shows in China. According to Lu Wei, the company's production director, production companies typically handle a show's entire production and then sell the program to TV stations for a one-time payment. This kind of cooperation model usually forces production companies to skimp on costs at the expense of program quality in order to maximize profits.

But Canxing Productions took a different track with The Voice of China. The company signed a three-season contract and agreed to co-produce the series with Zhejiang Television, a provincial satellite channel that already broadcasts several popular talent shows. The contract includes a ratings agreement: if the show's ratings do not reach a certain level, the production company will bear the advertising losses; but if the ratings surpass that level, the production company and broadcasting station will share the benefits.

In short, the production company and the TV station share both revenue and risk, and the results have been anything but disappointing for both sides.

Some episodes of The Voice of China have been watched by 4 percent of the nation's TV audience (In China, a rating of above 1 percent means a show is popular.). This has made the show's advertising fees for a 15-second slot soar from 150,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan ($24,000-$80,000), and the ads for the season finale were sold for as much as 1.16 million yuan ($187,000), a new record in Chinese advertising history.

According to Zhejiang Television, bids for advertising on The Voice of China's second season, which will air later this year, reached 104 million yuan ($17 million).

 Commercial venture

The Voice of China is China's adaptation of a Dutch reality talent show. The royalties for three seasons of the show alone total 3 million yuan ($483,870), but this is only the tip of the production costs iceberg. Under its cooperative contract, the production company was motivated to invest a large sum of money in the show's production to ensure top production values, laying a solid foundation for the show's success.

When the show records, 27 cameras shoot simultaneously, ready to capture every detail. The studio's sound system cost an unprecedented 20 million yuan ($3 million). Each 90-minute episode is edited together from over 200 hours of footage.

"Not a penny was wasted, but we paid for everything necessary to make the show a hit," said Lu Wei.

Finding savvy sponsors is key to paying such enormous production bills. A tea beverage company gambled on the show with a 60-million yuan ($9.6 million) sponsorship, but ended up winning big. The increase in publicity caused a 50-percent jump in sales.

The Voice franchise, which is of Dutch origin, has been successfully adapted by many countries and regions. But in China, the show's producers have a more ambitious goal: building an industrial chain.

When the season ended, Canxing Productions formed its own entertainment agency to manage the show's singers and develop marketing strategies, including several advertisements and a live tour around China and overseas.

The production company also partnered with China Mobile to make the songs performed by contestants on the show into ring tones available for online purchase right after each episode. This helped the singers become more famous and drew an estimated 320 million yuan ($51 million) in revenue.

According to Li Huaiyu, chief investment officer of China Media Capital, a state-backed investor of Canxing Productions, China's cultural industry has its own characteristics and operating rules, requiring coordination of content planning, producing, broadcasting, advertising and follow-up operations. Dozens of foreign TV program formats have been introduced to Chinese TV networks. As well as The Voice, other shows, including Dating in the Dark and I Love My Country also originated in the Netherlands, which is one of the top distributors of TV formats in the world. Other Chinese sources of inspiration include the British program X Factor, American Idol, and I Am a Singer from South Korea.

The growing trend of format importing has also caused worries over the lack of domestic innovation in China's television industry. But many believe that importing foreign shows allows production companies to gain advanced expertise.