'TVB Family Culture' -- some upcoming changes at TVB

** HOT OFF THE PRESS **

TVB’s chairman Norman Leung just announced that they will be making a lot of changes and instituting what they call “TVB family culture”.  He said he was inspired by veteran actor Liu Kai Chi’s interview (I’m assuming he meant the long, in-depth interview that Uncle Chi did with Mingpao, which was a great interview by the way) and is instituting changes because he wants people who work for TVB to feel proud to work for them – also, he said that if other TV stations (referring to HKTV) can do it (referring to all the things that HKTV has done for its artists), TVB should be able to do it way better.

While on the one hand I’m happy to see TVB finally willing to make changes that will benefit their artists and are putting in the effort to recreate the ‘family’ atmosphere that defined them back in the 70s and 80s (and early 90s to some extent), part of me can’t help but think that these changes are ‘too little, too late’.  With all the ‘damage’ that has already been done, it’s going to be difficult for them to turn things around without a lot of hard effort….plus, right now, it’s all talk – until these changes are put into action and we start seeing the results, I’m not too confident that TVB will be able to pull it off.  

Also, the 15-20 years or so of TVB treating their artists like crap is definitely not going to be easy to reverse....besides, there are other policies that they need to look at as well that had a huge hand in putting them in the rut they’re in today.  With these changes, it's definitely a step in the right direction, but how effective it will be remains to be seen...let’s wait and see though….

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Below is the translation of the article that outlines the new plan…

Source:  kuangai TVB’s weibo

(I’ll post the link to the actual article from its original news source later on…)

Yesterday, TVB’s chairman Norman Leung attended the celebration dinner for Triumph in the Skies II.  Of course, the ‘hot topic’ of late has been the free TV license debacle and Ricky Wong’s HKTV.  Despite losing their jobs, all of the HKTV staff have stood by Mr. Wong and supported him, with not a single person blaming him for the situation – to be honest, this is something that we’ve never seen happen at TVB.  In addition, veteran actor Liu Kai Chi (廖啟智) accepted an interview with a magazine earlier in which he detailed very clearly, point by point, why he decided to leave TVB (after close to 30 years of service) – it wasn’t a decision made in haste or out of a fit of anger.  Rather, it was because some of the clauses in TVB’s contracts were too ‘bizarre’ and ‘insulting’ to artists.  At the end of the day, the biggest reason why things eventually got to this point – TVB’s monopoly and the lack of competition to challenge them. The emergence of Ricky Wong gave these television artists new hope and reignited in them the passion and love for their craft that had long since disappeared.  

Now, it seems that even TVB has finally ‘woken up’ and realizes that something has to be done.  At the dinner, Norman Leung went onstage to give his customary speech, during which he expressed that over the weekend, he read the interview that Liu Kai Chi did and that inspired him to immediately institute a few changes:  “Effective immediately, I would like to start cultivating a ‘TVB family culture’.  As part of the management team, my hope is that members of our TVB family will truly feel proud that they are part of our family and that everyone will see our progress.”

Mr. Leung continues:  “This new TVB family culture consists of 4 main things:  first is that our artists need to feel respected; second is that work hours need to be reasonable; third, compensation needs to be reasonable and fair; fourth is that all artists need to be given opportunities to perform.”

“In terms of the work hours, the memo has already been sent out:  work hours will be based on ‘shifts’ going forward.  Each shift will be 10 hours, but can be extended to 11 hours if needed on certain occasions – anything over 11 hours must be approved by the director of production.  For on location filming, the shift can extend up to 12 hours, however anything over 14 hours will require approval from the director of production.  With this change, we hope that artists will be able to get sufficient rest.  At the same time, we already implemented the requirement that all scripts must be 80% complete before filming starts so that the production team can have sufficient time to prepare.  Even though all these changes will cause production overhead to increase, that’s okay because our goal is to make quality series and also create a good working environment for our staff.”

Mr. Leung concluded his speech with the following words of encouragement to his staff:  “If other TV stations are able to do it, TVB will definitely be able to do it too – not only that, we should be able to do it better!  I don’t care whether you’re Mr. Wong, Mr. Lee, Mr. Ma, or Mr. Cow – I’m absolutely certain that we [TVB] are up to the challenge and will absolutely do it better than you!”