First
off, my apologies to those who have been actively following my blog, as I
recognize that I’ve been doing a poor job keeping it updated lately – some
things came up and I just haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to it as I
would like. Though I’ve continued to
stay on top of the latest ‘happenings’ in the HK entertainment world, I
unfortunately haven’t found the chance to ‘blog’ about stuff or do too many
translations lately, so I’ve actually got a long list of stuff that I would
like to post about still – hopefully I’ll get a chance to do so more
consistently in the coming months.
Anyway,
back to the post at hand….
I
know I haven’t ‘ranted’ about TVB in a long time – of course there has been
plenty of stuff to rant about the past few months (probably enough for several
posts actually…LOL), but as I said earlier, I’ve had a lot going on, so haven’t
had time to gather all my thoughts into a coherent post until now.
Amongst
the many TVB-related ‘happenings’ worth ranting about lately, one piece of news
from the past few days got me worked up enough to rant about at the moment:
recently, TVB outlined in more detail their ‘plans’ for expanding into
the Mainland China market (they already started doing so a little while back
with the creation of TVBC – the Mainland China arm of TVB – but didn’t really
talk too much in detail about their plans until now).
Before
I go into my actual rant, let me set the background for this post by briefly
summarizing what TVB’s plans are in the Mainland (based on an interview that
Virginia Lok did with ND Daily, which was published yesterday – link to
original article here).
In summary, the plans are as follows:
.—The
goal this year is to elevate the status of TVB artists in the Mainland. Therefore, any programs that TVBC invests in,
TVB will recommend its own ‘contracted’ artists (primarily their own
‘biological’ children who are under management contract) for the programs.
.—More
‘collaborative’ series (series where HK artists will collaborate with Mainland
artists – similar to what they did in the series Drive of Life, Growing
Through Life, etc.) will be filmed.
TVB will provide the scripts and the artists while SMG (the production
company that TVB is collaborating with in Mainland) will provide the filming
locations and equipment.
.—TVB
siu sangs and fadans will formulate ‘teams’ that will travel to Mainland and
collaborate with various ‘teams’ of artists over there. Also, TVB will continue to seek out other
Mainland TV stations and film/TV production companies to collaborate with as
well. Artists who rarely ever film in
Mainland (those mentioned in the interview include Moses Chan, Fala Chen, Wayne
Lai, Kate Tsui, etc.) will eventually be heading up North one after another…
.—One
of the goals that Virginia Lok (as head of the Artists Management Department)
has been actively pursuing is to push the current ‘second tier’ TVB artists (VL mentions artists such as Eliza Sam, Christine Kuo, Rebecca Zhu, Oscar Leung, etc. in the interview) up to ‘first
tier’ fadan / siu sang level. With many
of the ‘first tier’ artists heading to Mainland, this will open up the door for
TVB to further push this goal in the upcoming year.
.—As
for the question of where their scripts will come from (since TVB will be
providing the scripts and most of their long-time scriptwriters already left
the company), Virginia Lok stated that they are ‘encouraging’ more variety in
scripts by having them come from different sources – for example: Eric Tsang will be writing some scripts
specifically tailored for TVB; artists such as Wong Cho Lam will continue to
provide ideas and outlines of scripts for TVB’s scriptwriters to work
with.
.—This
year, TVB will be sending 10 of its singers to participate in the popular
Mainland singing contest “Voice of China”. [Note: VL didn’t elaborate on this so not sure if
she means TVB-groomed singers such as those who came out of their own singing
contest “The Voice” or their so-called ‘actors/actresses turned singers’ – my
guess is that she means their “The Voice” singers, as I’m assuming that TVB
isn’t going to be foolish enough to send their actors and actresses (most of
whom can’t sing to save their lives) to a Mainland singing contest where
everyone is levels above them…it would be way too embarrassing….]
.—Lastly,
according to Virginia Lok, they are hoping to reach a wider audience in HK –
meaning break the tradition of catering to ‘housewife’ audiences only and
instead try to appeal to more younger audiences. [TN: Hmmm…not sure how true this
part is because VL’s boss – TVB’s Assistant General Manager Au Wai Lam – stated
in an interview for TVB Magazine last year that they will continue to cater to
housewife audiences in the future because that’s the majority of the audience
pool in HK].
In
a nutshell – towards TVB’s ‘lofty’ goal of establishing TVBC and expanding into
the Mainland market, TVB’s director of external affairs Tsang Sing Ming had
this to say: “We believe that with this
method [creation of TVBC], it will encourage some of the siu sangs and fadans
who were previously interested in leaving to stay behind now. At the same time, it will also attract those
‘heavyweight’ artists who already left – such as Charmaine Sheh, Sheren Tang,
etc. – to return. The ‘worth’ (aka
salaries) of TVBC artists will be calculated according to Mainland market
rates.” [TN: I guess this means TVBC artists won’t have to
work for ‘dirt cheap’ measly salaries like their HK counterparts do: good news for those who get ‘chosen’ to be
TVBC artists, but definitely bad news for those who remain behind in HK and
must continue to ‘slave’ for peanuts (unfortunately, this is majority of the
artists currently at TVB – especially the veteran third/fourth line ones….)]
.********.
Now
that the background is laid out, here
goes the rant…..
To
be very honest, I actually don’t really give a damn about TVB expanding into
the Mainland market, as I don’t watch Mainland series anyway and I’m not
planning to watch in the future either (doesn’t matter if some of my favorite
artists film in the Mainland – the series just don’t interest me). So basically, what they decide to do over
there is not my problem – that’s for the Mainland entertainment world to
‘worry’ about.
The
piece that I’m most concerned about is how this expansion into the Mainland
thing is going to affect TVB in HK – both the quality of series overall as well
as the artists who will be ‘left behind’ so to speak.
In
terms of artists, I’m referring specifically to those third/fourth/fifth tier
‘green leaf’/’gam cho’ artists who are not ‘popular enough’ (meaning they are
not on the ‘most favored’ list) to be given the time of day by TVB. What’s going to happen to these talented
green leaf artists who, under the current ‘system’, are already largely ignored
and neglected by TVB? What are the
options? Continue to work slave hours for
cheap TVB at below market salaries that are barely enough to make ends meet in
the hopes that 20 years down the road (if they make it that far) they will
finally be able to climb to ‘recognizable’ status? Or get out now while there’s still a chance
and find something better to do than to work for a company that doesn’t give a
damn about them (and never will as long as there are other more ‘popular’
artists to tend to)?
Of
course, the ideal situation would be for these artists to ‘have a way out’ in
the form of being able to continue doing what they love best (acting) in their
own home territory (Hong Kong) -- namely, having the option to work for a
different TV station in HK that better suits their needs. Unfortunately, with this whole free TV
license thing still in limbo (and no clear end in sight), the options are very
limited – artists who still want to film TV series in HK must either work for
slave-driving TVB or the ‘most likely soon to fold’ ATV (newsbrief: ATV’s top
exec James Shing recently announced at FILMART that they will go back to
producing series again – hmmm…given ATV’s current situation, let’s see if that
actually pans out or not). HKTV is
probably the best option out there for most of these artists, but until they
get their license (which could take a LONG time), it’s still a bit of a risky
choice.
Oh
and how about the quality of future series that TVB produces? I mean, you’d think that TVB learned its
lesson from the drastic decline in the quality of their series the past decade
or so – just when you think that the quality couldn’t get any worse, now
they’re planning on mixing in more ‘collaborative’ series in the years to come, despite the fact that those
types of series were never well-received by HK audiences (understandably
so).
And
even with the collaborative series thing aside, the quality will still continue
to suffer because the fact of the matter is, many of the ‘second tier’ artists
that TVB is planning to promote JUST DON’T CUT IT – majority of the them need
to go through acting training big time (oh and while they’re at it, some of
them should go through ‘Cantonese as a Second Language’ courses as well…).
Hmmm….all
this makes me think whether TVB’s move to expand into the Mainland market is
really because they want their artists to be ‘more known’ in Mainland (as they
claim) or they’re actually motivated by something else (like greed and the
hunger for power, for example). I mean,
honestly, TVB already has a huge problem with lack of capable artists at home
(HK) -- instead of trying to ‘expand’ their empire further, shouldn’t they be
more concerned with ‘fixing’ the issues they have at home first (by investing
in acting training and changing some of their antiquated policies for example)?
The
piece that gets me really worked up about this whole thing is the fact that TVB
is so adamantly opposed to opening up the market in HK to allow more free TV
stations in (and are doing everything in their power to prevent new licenses
from being issued). Sure, I understand
the ‘argument’ about trying to protect business interests and profits, etc. but
fact of the matter is, those are just excuses because anyone with common sense
knows that TVB is not going to go bankrupt just because more TV stations are
added to the mix. I mean, let’s be real
– we’re talking about a company that makes billions of dollars every year and
while most companies are struggling to even survive, they are still turning
over a hefty profit year after year (and now with the full-fledged expansion
into the Mainland market, they will be raking in even more profit due to the
lucrative market over there). Given the
great prospective and outlook in their favor, why does TVB need to continue
selfishly holding on to their monopoly in HK when they know full well that they
are stifling the growth of the industry (and threatening people’s livelihoods
in the process)?
Bottom
line – I don’t have the answer to whether TVB’s expansion into the Mainland is
a good thing or bad one, as it really depends on the way you look at it. But I do know that for me at least, I’m not
too thrilled about it (for the reasons stated above). Whatever the case, let’s see where this
decision of TVB’s ends up leading...
