My 'TVB Rant' #28: Wow, just....WOW: TVB's bullying taken to new heights.....

TVB did something this past week that I'm so pissed about, I have to write about it to vent my frustration (as if I haven't written about it enough already in various discussion forums and such, lol).

Anyway, the big entertainment news from this weekend was the huge fallout (second one in less than a decade) between record company Universal and TVB over copyright terms for using Universal artists' songs on TVB programs feature on their Internet channels (i.e. myTV, myTV Super, TVB.com).   The way it works is that the record companies give TVB contracted rights to use their artists' music/songs for a period of 3 years and after that, the contract gets renewed if both parties agree on the terms.  Well, TVB's latest contract with Universal expired on 5/1/16 so both parties got together to discuss contract renewal as they've been doing for the past few decades.  TVB sent Herman Ho - the head of their own music label Voice Entertainment - to discuss contract terms with Universal's higher ups (I'll explain in a minute why I have a problem with this arrangement in the first place) and departing from usual terms, this time around, TVB put in a requirement that is at the same time ridiculous and impossible to fulfill.  TVB basically requested that Universal sign over the exclusive rights to use their artists' songs FOREVER (yes, you read it right - the word used was FOREVER!) - which meant that TVB could continue to use Universal copyrighted songs in any program they feature on their Internet portals even after the contract terms are up without having to worry about getting copyright approval (which implies that they don't have to pay Universal royalty fees) and also that Universal can't allow other stations to use those songs.   Universal of course said HELL NO (kudos to them!!!) and decided to not renew their contract with TVB (lol...the Universal execs reacted quite professionally - if it were me, I would've told Herman Ho to go to hell!)  Based on the contract terms, TVB has 3 years from expiration date (so 4/30/2019) to either remove all Universal copyrighted songs from their Internet programs (which of course would be a lot of work) or take down the affected programs from their Internet portals entirely (note that these terms don't apply to programs aired on TVB's regular free-to-air channel).  So basically, TVB was once again trying to be the arrogant bully that they are but this time, it backfired on them because Universal refused to bend to them.

I don't think any of us need to be rocket scientists to understand what type of impact this is going to have on the HK television and music industries.  Herman Ho claims that TVB still 'welcomes' all Universal artists to participate in their programs provided their appearance doesn't violate contract terms (meaning there is no singing / music involved), however knowing TVB's track record, that is pretty much lip service, as we all know that TVB is petty and will now be 'banning' Universal artists just like they did during the royalty dispute 7-8 years ago.  Besides, who the hell gave Herman Ho the right to speak for TVB as a whole when he's only the head of their record label?  Oh, that's right - his wife is Sandy Yu, who, on paper, is only the head of the variety programs department (and is at the same level as Catherine Tsang, who is head of the drama department), but in reality, she is the actual one 'in power' at TVB now.  Go figure!  The fact that TVB sent Herman Ho to negotiate with a fellow record company is conflict of interest first of all (since both are heads of rival record companies) and it also reeks of insincerity on TVB's part -- if TVB CEO Mark Lee felt it was beneath him to negotiate with a mere record company, then at least send one of the GMs who oversee all production to negotiate with Universal...after all, the outcome of the talks will for sure impact all of TVB's programs, not just music-related ones.  With this arrangement, TVB already started off on the wrong foot (though to be honest, I'm not sure whether this was a deliberate move on TVB's part to "pay back" Universal for opposing them so many times over the past few years or the current execs over at TVB are just dumbaxxxs who have no clue what they are doing....I personally think it might be a combination of both).  The reason I threw that 'pay back' thing in there is because Universal's execs said that they've had the same contract with TVB for decades and the discussions have always gone smoothly, but this time around, TVB dropped that "forever" clause on them out of nowhere, which is what caused the discussion to go sour (why the sudden change in terms, TVB???)

The latest 'development' in this absurd saga is that as of yesterday, TVB (um, actually Herman Ho - but I guess he represents all of TVB now) was "crying a river" to reporters, claiming that Universal was the one being "unreasonable" by forcing TVB to take down/remove Universal copyrighted content within 3 years.  How INSANE is that????  TVB is the one who started the dispute by putting forth a RIDICULOUS to the max requirement that NO ONE in their right minds would agree to - now when Universal says NO and proceeds with terminating the contract as per terms, TVB is trying to make themselves look like the victim by shifting the blame on the record company instead?  WTF?  Oh, but it gets better....in the same "crying a river" interview, Herman Ho goes on to contradict himself by saying that the 'impact' of this dispute to TVB won't be much at all, as 'only a handful of programs will be affected' (yeah, right!!!!).  Um, if only 'a handful of programs' is being affected, why the bloody hell is TVB (via Herman Ho) trying to shift the blame to Universal?  Herman Ho is actually outright lying, as it's obvious to anyone with a brain that the impact of this is going to be huge, especially since the copyrighted songs date all the way back to the 80s/90s (which includes all the songs under Polygram, which Universal bought out in the 90s).  Even TVB's former GM Stephen Chan said that he hasn't been paying much attention to the details of the issue, but he knows for a fact that if TVB has to remove/take down all copyrighted programs, that will definitely be a huge problem for them.  With Universal being one of the largest international record companies out there with practically half the HK music industry signed to them (including many of the industry's 'biggest names' such as Alan Tam, Jacky Cheung, Hacken Lee, Sandy Lam, George Lam, Eason Chan, Kelly Chan, etc.), it will obviously be TVB's loss if they don't rectify the situation and proceed to 'ban' Universal (as is widely speculated).  Universal definitely does not need TVB, as they have a plethora of other options and platforms to promote their music (including TVB's rival free-to-air station ViuTV - which they already have collaborations with - as well as the cable networks and of course, internet platforms such as Youtube).

To be honest, I am actually a bit surprised that TVB would make such a bonehead, stupid move at such a sensitive point in time when their reputation is already in the toilet, their production quality is at an all-time low, artists and behind-the-scenes people are jumping ship left and right, and their own in-house produced singers (the Voice Entertainment crowd) are being heavily criticized for lacking actual singing skills.  Also, in this day and age, with all the technology and resulting doors that have opened up with Internet platforms, there's no way that TVB doesn't know that the record companies have tons more options than they've ever had in the past to promote their artists' music.  Does TVB really think they are that 'high and mighty' as to demand that the record companies collaborate ONLY with them and forego all other opportunities to make more money?  What record company would be stupid enough to cut off a large part of their revenue source just so they can cater to TVB's ridiculous whims?  (Ok, ok, I know that there ARE some record companies out there who would be willing to do it because they are so pro-TVB...not that I'm going to name names though, lol).  What planet are these TVB execs living on?  Like I said in another forum - either Herman Ho is deliberately trying to sabotage TVB's relationship with other record companies in order to boost his own record label or TVB has gotten to the "arrogant beyond saving" stage where they are stupidly flexing their power to see who will bend to them without giving a crap about the consequences.

Lastly...I don't think it's lost on anyone reading this that there will be one more 'consequence' that none of us HK television fans want to see happen:  the television screen for the next 3 years (and perhaps beyond that) will essentially be 'dominated' by Voice Entertainment singers (argh, please kill me now...) and the JSG awards ceremonies will go back to being "the EEG + Voice Entertainment Music Awards".  TVB just gave me more reason to stop watching their programs!  I swear, TVB is slowly chipping away at the small circle of 'support' that I still have for them - if it weren't for the few artists and behind-the-scenes people I care about still working for TVB, I would've abandoned this station a long time ago.

Words of wisdom to TVB from a long-time 'follower' (me - though of course, not that TVB gives a damn, lol):  Stop testing our patience with the arrogant attitude and pettiness!  Despite the fact that you have let us down time and time again, many of us still continue to 'support' you to some extent because of sentimentality (and other) reasons.   Stop taking advantage of your audiences' goodwill and stop treating everyone like brainless sheep who must adhere to your every beck and call.  Let ATV be a lesson on how NOT to manage a TV station (though looks like it's too late for this one) because if you fall, it will be 100 times worse and the damage will be far-reaching....

Book Review series “Now and Then” (從零開始) -- Revival and Poll

Back in 2010, I started a book review series on a set of 3 book compilations called “Now and Then” (從零開始).  The books are written by veteran Mingpao reporter Wong Lai Ling where she essentially compiles all the interviews she has done with numerous celebrities over the past 3 decades and adds her personal anecdotes to create a semi-biographical first-person account of her experiences with those celebrities.   She covers many aspects of the celebrity’s career as well as personal life, often including her own personal stories and background information on HK entertainment history.  As a means of clarification, Wong Lai Ling is NOT the average unethical entertainment gossip reporter that we see way too many of nowadays -- she was actually a pretty reputable and respected reporter back then and still is even now.  I feel this clarification is important, especially in this day and age when it’s so easy to become jaded with the endless trash and false reports that the gossip rags dish out daily about celebrities big and small.  I don’t want people getting the wrong impression that this is just another one of those gossip rag compilations because it is absolutely NOT!  Granted, some of the stuff mentioned in the books may not be 100% true, since it IS from a reporter’s point of view after all, plus there will undoubtedly be certain biases and perspectives that not everyone will agree with (i.e.:  I had read some Anita Mui fans’ comments that they didn’t like how the segment on Anita talked more about her family than about her career – personally, I didn’t have a problem with it, as I felt the way the author put that segment together actually helped to highlight even more how great of a person Anita was despite having such a horrible family).  At the end of the day, each person’s interpretation and opinion will be different and there really isn’t a right or wrong in my opinion….

I will say that one of the things I appreciate about this book series is the fact that Wong Lai Ling tries, as much as possible, to include all or part of the original interviews that she had done with the celebrities themselves (so readers can hear from those celebrities directly) – she also provides background information on each interview, which helps chronicle each celebrity’s thoughts and feelings during that time and in some cases, even helps to explain why some of them made certain decisions that they did.  It pretty much reads like an extended story, complete with pictures from Mingpao’s photo vault that accompany each chapter in a chronological timeline format.

Another thing I like about this book series as opposed to other entertainment books released in recent years is that its focus (for the most part, with the exception of the 3rd book) is on veteran entertainers from HK’s ‘golden age’ time period, written by a reporter who actually experienced that era and knew these celebrities personally.  In recent years, I’ve seen too many newer reporters who have no knowledge of that era outside of what others have told them -- they try to write about these celebrities and oftentimes, the stuff they put out lacks depth and substance (some of it even amounts to mere ‘hearsay’, since many of those reporters weren’t even born yet when most of these celebrities were most active in the industry).   Having been one of those people who personally experienced that ‘golden era’ of HK entertainment myself, it kind of irks me to read watered-down accounts of that era from people who will never understand how things were truly like back then.  This is why I love reading stuff from veteran reporters such as Wong Lai Ling (as well as her other counterparts at MP such as Tsui Yong Yong, Charles Chak, etc.), as it brings back so many great memories of that era and essentially takes me on a fantastic journey down memory lane.

There are a total of 3 books in the series and each book focuses on 10 celebrities (for a total of 30 celebrities, though some of the books have ‘bonus’ material that is in addition to the regular content – such as the third and final book of the series where Wong Lai Ling writes a special tribute to Leslie Cheung, whom she had known for over 20 years and was close friends with – she had actually already written about him in the first book, but since the third book was written around the 7th anniversary of his death, she decided to put in a special chapter in honor of him).

I started writing a review series for these books on my blog back in 2010 and got through a handful of celebrities, but then I started getting really busy with life and work, so never got around to continuing the series.  In addition, with the amount of detail in the books and how picky I am about my writing and translations, doing this review series was actually quite draining on me, which is another reason why I haven’t picked it back up the past few years.  With all that said though, I’ve received a tremendous number of inquiries about the series the past couple years, with the interest level peaking especially in the last 2 to 3 years due to the HK entertainment industry reaching such a dismal state and more and more people jumping onto the nostalgia bandwagon (which, of course, I don’t blame them for since there truly is nothing much worth ‘following’ nowadays in the HK entertainment industry). 

Because of the above, I feel that I owe it to the dedicated readers and followers of my blog to revive this review series again.  However, instead of continuing where I left off 5 years ago, I would like to get feedback from you guys, on which celebrities you most want to read about.  Just to be clear though, there will be a few caveats, as there are celebrities that I really don’t care much about, so I prefer not to waste time writing about them, especially given how much time it takes for me to get one of these posts done (though being soft-hearted that I am, lol, if there are celebrities in this category that you absolutely are dying to read about, let me know and I might consider doing a brief, condensed version – but it will be way lower priority).

Here’s the list of celebrities featured in each of the 3 books.  The ones I already wrote about are in BOLD (planning to hyperlink the posts that I wrote, but won’t get a chance to until later – meanwhile, if you’re interested in reading these, please click on the ‘Now and Then’ tag in the sidebar to access the posts). 

Please feel free to indicate your choices and any other feedback in the comments section.

**Note:  Celebrity names are not listed in any particular order!

Book One:

Jacky Cheung (I only did a partial writeup though – I plan on doing a more in-depth piece later on)

Carina Lau

Alan Tam

Leslie Cheung (I will probably update later with the additional ‘special tribute’ that Wong Lai Ling wrote a few years after the first one)

Wong Kar Kui (Beyond)

Jackie Chan

Sammi Cheng

Teresa Teng

Veronica Yip

Brigitte Lin

 
Book Two:

Tony Leung Chiu Wai

Maggie Cheung Man Yuk

Andy Lau

Cherie Chung

Chow Yun Fat

Faye Wong

Danny Chan

Shu Qi

Stephen Chow

Anita Mui

 
Book Three:

Lydia Shum

Eason Chan

Sylvia Chang

Josephine Hsiao

Cecilia Cheung

Daniel  Wu

Sandy Lam

Joey Wong

Rosamund Kwan

Anthony Wong Yiu Ming

*plus special tribute to Leslie Cheung

Jacky Cheung’s 2016 World Tour Concert – Countdown post #1

It’s almost that time again!!!  My idol Jacky Cheung had announced earlier in the year that he will for sure be starting a concert tour this year (2016), however the details have yet to be announced.  A few months ago, an entertainment magazine claimed that Jacky’s concert was originally set to start in October 2016, however due to legal disputes with Jacky’s former concert manager Florence Chan, Jacky and his current concert organizer Universal will be delaying the concert indefinitely.  Universal responded by denying the report and confirming that Jacky’s concert will launch in October 2016 in Mainland China as originally planned.  They did not reveal any other information in their statement though and said that further details will be forthcoming at a later date.  Jacky did confirm in a subsequent interview (during promo efforts for his new movie) that his concert will indeed launch in October and the previous reports of the concert being delayed are false, however he also declined to reveal too much detail and asked that everyone wait for Universal’s official announcement (reporters did ask him about the HK leg of the concert, to which he replied that the ‘earliest’ he would be able to do HK is December due to availability of the HK Coliseum, which is notoriously difficult to book).

 

As of right now, neither Universal nor Jacky have made any official announcements concerning his concert.  With the rise in fraudulent news and scams in the entertainment circle the past few years, especially with the prevalence of social media and ordinary netizens becoming easy targets, I would like to take this opportunity to warn all Jacky fans (and non-fans alike) to be wary of any information you hear / see / read on the Internet pertaining to Jacky’s concert.  Unless the information comes from Universal, Jacky himself, or his official fan club, otherwise, please take whatever you hear with a grain of salt!

 

A few days ago, there was a supposedly ‘leaked’ document from the Mainland company collaborating with Universal for the China leg of Jacky’s concert claiming that the necessary approvals have been received from the Mainland government agencies for the concert to be held in Beijing.  The document claimed to be for the Beijing leg of the tour and listed concert dates, venue, performer, as well as 60 songs that would supposedly be performed (the dates are listed as 10/21 to 10/23 at the LeSports Center in Beijing).  While I’m pretty sure the venue and dates are likely correct, the song list for sure is NOT, for the following reasons: 

 

1) Jacky traditionally sings around 30 to 35 songs at his concerts, which is enough to fill a 2 to 3 hour timeslot – even the shows that go overtime with multiple encore segments have only been around 40 songs max, so for someone to claim that he will song 60 songs in a 3 hour timeframe is ludicrous.

 

2) A few songs from Jacky’s newest album Wake Up Dreaming were not on the list, which is already a huge red flag, since Jacky himself had already said that he will for sure be performing all 10 songs from his new album at his next concert (which is in-line with how Jacky has done it in the past whenever he holds a concert after an album release)

 

3)  Some of the song names in the ‘60-song list’ were actually spelled wrong (there were extra Chinese characters in some of the songs that didn’t belong there while some songs had characters missing, which essentially turns the song into a completely different song altogether).  Obviously this is another huge red flag, as we all know that the official organizers and Jacky himself would never spell the song names wrong – this is not only unprofessional but also hugely erodes credibility.

 

I checked with a few friends in Beijing who are familiar with how the process works there and they told me that the document released was merely a form that the company arranging the concert had to fill out and submit to the Mainland government entities to get permission to use the listed venue.  It is purely a ‘best guesstimate’ procedural document used to secure the facility and by no means should it be treated as any type of ‘official’ announcement regarding the concert.  My friends said that the song choices were most likely the personal preferences of whoever put the form together and therefore should not be treated as ‘the official rundown’ for the concert (one of my friends also told me that the ‘content’ field on the form can’t be left blank otherwise the application will get rejected, which is probably why the person wrote down a list of 60 songs in the hopes that maybe half of them will be on the mark when the official announcement comes out).

 

As I’ve done in past years, I will definitely be posting up concert information in the sidebar section of my blog, however I will only do so once the ‘official’ announcements come out and I am able to validate the information as being correct and accurate.  In the meantime, I encourage those who are highly anticipating Jacky’s concert to be vigilant and carefully filter through any information you receive concerning his upcoming concert tour.