The queen is dead. Long live the queen. It was a cruel coincidence that Li Yuchun, winner of last year's Supergirls reality TV show, only released her debut album nine days before her successor, Shang Wenjie, was crowned this year's winner.
Reality TV stars have a limited lifespan, so it must have been galling for Li to see Shang win with almost 1.5 million more votes than she received.
Despite the increased number of votes cast, this year's Supergirls, an American Idol clone in which amateur female singers compete for the chance to become stars, didn't create the same frenzy as last year's competition.
The soccer World Cup distracted from the preliminary rounds, while allegations of multiple voting by fans who organise themselves over the internet soured the final sing-off.
Nor has it taken long for the conspiracy theorists to point out that Shang, with her tomboy-ish haircut and less-than-stellar singing voice, both looks and sounds remarkably similar to Li. With Li on the inexorable slide to obscurity, Shang makes a perfect replacement for the predominantly female fans of the show and, more importantly, for advertisers.
The major reason for the show's success is that it appeals to a hitherto untapped market of teenage girls and their slightly older student sisters. If men had been voting, then the better-looking and more talented runner-up, Tan Weiwei, would have won. Young women went for Shang because her high grades at Shanghai's prestigious Fudan University, her job at a foreign company and her persistence are goals and attributes everyone can aspire to. The marketing men must have sighed with relief at girl-next-door Shang's victory, too. Just as Li became the face of everything from mobile phones to stamps, so Shang's singing will take second place to her role as an advertising machine.