News Article: TVB attempts to save its music programs through ‘ice-breaking’ dinner with record companies

I read the below article in Mingpao Weekly over the weekend and since it contains some info that might impact the HK music industry, I decided it would be appropriate to share it here.

I personally don't have much opinion on the music-related changes that TVB is planning on rolling out next year, since I stopped caring about the HK music industry for close to a decade already. Most of the singers I like are veteran artists from the 70s, 80s, and 90s and if/when they release new music, I have my ways of finding out and supporting.  Yes, I still do listen to newer music from the younger generation, but not as much compared to in the past...plus I don't follow most of the newbie singers anyway.

My only comment on the article below:  the part that annoyed me big time was Sandy Yu once again 'boasting' that they (TVB) came up with the idea of having a unified awards ceremony and that they are all for this idea, but the other 3 media companies shot it down.  Well, I will tell you that what Sandy said is B.S.!!!!!   TVB was NOT the one who came up with the unified awards ceremony thing -- in fact, they weren't even supportive of such an idea until about a year or so ago!  The veteran singers -- such as Jacky Cheung for example -- were technically the ones who first suggested that HK should do a unified awards ceremony...in fact, Jacky had heavily pushed for this about 5 years ago and would talk about it at practically every interview.  But all the media organizations (TVB included) were vehemently opposed (most likely because they would lose whatever benefit they got from keeping it separate).  At that time, TVB even went as far as 'boycotting' Jacky because he kept pushing the unified awards thing (though there were other reasons too, such as Jacky saying that alot of the music programs don't respect the singers because they cut off their performances among other things -- indirect jab at TVB, since they were notorious for doing this...plus there was the royalty dispute, since he belongs to one of the record companies that was at odds with TVB).  I don't have a problem with TVB realizing they were stupid not to support the unified awards ceremony thing and therefore are now changing their tune -- but for them to take the credit for 'coming up with the idea' and bragging about it constantly and then worse yet, making themselves seem all high and mighty and the other 3 media stations look like jerks for refusing to cooperate with them...to me, that is utterly ABHORRENT!!   If I hear TVB brag about this again, I swear I am probably going to strangle someone over there...argh!! :-(

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TVB attempts to save its music programs through ‘ice-breaking’ dinner with record companies

Source:  Mingpao Weekly, Issue# 2445

Original article published September 18, 2015

Translation: llwy12

In recent years, due to losing many of its first-line actors and actresses, TVB had to cast newcomers in lead roles in more of their series while continuing to watch the ratings for their programs fall.  At the same time, TVB’s music programs have also suffered a significant decline.  Ever since the royalty dispute 5 years ago with the big 4 record companies (Sony, Warner, Universal, and EMI), TVB’s relationship with the record labels has been shaky.   As a result, TVB’s music programs as well as their JSG awards ceremony have lacked significant star power the past few years, which has not only made their programs less attractive, but also severely reduced their impact [on the music industry].

Seeing this, TVB took the initiative to put together a dinner this past Wednesday (September 16^th) to ‘break the ice’ with the record companies.  As host of the dinner, TVB’s director of variety programming Sandy Yu (余詠珊) invited the management teams from all of HK’s record companies, whether big or small, to attend.  At the same time, Sandy Yu also took the opportunity to update those present on TVB’s latest projects related to music as well as roll out a few policy changes resulting from this.  With this dinner, TVB hoped to continue their long-standing contribution to the music industry while at the same time garner some ‘goodwill’ and support for their own music programs.

Three weeks ago, Sandy Yu had already contacted the executives at all the record companies to invite them to the dinner.  Since she took on the position of programming director for TVB’s variety department at the height of TVB’s royalty dispute with the big 4 record labels, this would actually be Sandy’s first time meeting with all the record company execs.   At first, a few of the record companies thought it was odd and were hesitant about attending, however when they heard that some of the major record labels’ execs -- such as EEG’s Ng Yu (吳雨) as well as East Asia’s Chan Chi Kwong (陳志光), etc. – had already confirmed their attendance, they proceeded with plans to participate.  With that said however, Universal Music’s top exec Duncan Wong (黃劍濤) did not attend the dinner, instead sending representatives in his place.

As host of the dinner, TVB arranged a 6 table banquet for the close to 70 execs in attendance.  Though technically one of the goals of the dinner was to have all the execs mingle with each other regardless of record company, the seating arrangements indicated otherwise.  At the first host table,  Sandy Yu was responsible for attending to the execs from Sony, Warner, and East Asia while her husband Herman Ho (何哲圖) – CEO of TVB’s newly formed in-house record company The Voice Entertainment Group (星夢娛樂有限公司) – hosted the execs from Universal and EEG at the second table.  The execs and representatives from the rest of the record companies were seated throughout the remaining 4 tables.

Internet popularity can qualify a song for JSG

According to those who were in attendance, Sandy Yu revealed at the dinner that TVB would be implementing 2 policy changes in the coming year.  Paraphrasing Sandy Yu’s speech at the dinner: “It’s been quite some time since we’ve gathered together for dinner – thank you to all of you for your support and attendance.  During times like this, the music industry needs unity and needs all of us to work together to make the industry better.  With this goal in mind, we (TVB) will be creating 6 to 12 additional channels in the coming year and also establishing an online TV station to support more music-related programming.  As a result, there will now be 2 new ‘policies’ if you will.  In the past, singers had to be backed by a record company and have a certain amount of name recognition in order to qualify for a spot on the JSG charts.  With the new policy, as long as a song gets recognition by listeners – for example it gets a lot of hits on the Internet – it can still get a spot on the charts; once on the charts, it can then be in the running for JSG seasonal selections and the year-end awards.”  Sandy Yu cited music queen Sammi Cheng (鄭秀文) covering Phil Lam’s (林奕匡) hit song High Mountain, Deep Valley (高山低谷) as an example – Sammi’s version, though not an official release, was popular on the Internet, so we shouldn’t underestimate the impact of these types of songs.  One of the attendees at the dinner revealed that the ‘no show, no award’ rule was brought up and TVB confirmed that, similar to before, if an artist does not attend the award ceremony, they will not get an award.

JSG Awards will take place earlier

The other change in policy involves TVB’s youth-oriented J2 channel.  Sandy Yu indicated that there have been many new singers to emerge in the music industry the past couple years, so they wanted to give these singers a platform to promote their music, whether through airing their MVs or participating in actual music programs.  TVB also indicated that they welcome any feedback from the record companies on the possible ideas to promote the artists under their labels – in addition, they hope to collaborate with the record companies to produce programs revolving around these artists, which will also be a different direction from the past.   Another project that the J2 channel is working on will be to produce a younger version of TVB’s current music variety program Sunday Songbird (Sunday靚聲王).  Sandy indicated that she welcomes any feedback the record companies may have on this project.  It is said that TVB intends to explore OTT set top broadcast format next year, which means that their cable channels and their free-to-air channels will be combined into one package in the near future and sold at a low price to local television audiences.  Therefore, TVB needs to produce more new programs to prepare for this move.

In terms of the annual JSG Awards ceremony, TVB revealed that this year, the show will be broadcast on December 20th instead of in January as in the past – this would make JSG the first of the big four music awards ceremonies to take place this year.  In addition, TVB8’s music awards ceremony, which takes place on January 17^th, will air on TVB’s Jade channel [their regular free-to-air channel] this year.  Sandy Yu indicated that she has already contacted overseas singers from other countries who are working on clearing their schedules so they can come to HK to attend.

Indifference toward new changes

Despite TVB taking the first step to break the ice, the record companies’ response toward the new changes seems to be one of indifference due to doubts about TVB’s intentions.   According to sources present at the dinner, there were a lot of concerns and questions raised about TVB’s new ‘policies’ – for example, someone asked why it was necessary for a singer whose song had already become a huge hit over the Internet to go on JSG and promote their song all over again?  Others brought up credibility concerns with basing awards on number of Internet hits, as it was easy for people to rig the results by increasing their number of hits.  Still others felt that TVB’s new system is backwards – what the music industry truly needs right now is for everyone to work together to make good quality music, not for people to get on the sensationalism bandwagon and rely on gimmicks to increase hit count.

Also, it was mentioned that in addition to the Internet, there are currently many options for singers to promote their music – for example, both i-Cable and NowTV have produced a lot of music shows the past couple years – so there isn’t tremendous concern about the lack of promotional platforms for singers.  Besides, the big international record companies that had lost TVB as a promotional platform the past couple years due to the royalty dispute have still been able to increase their own artists’ popularity and job offers (examples cited were Pakho Chau, Shiga Lin, Kelvin Kwan), which proves that singers can still survive in a different environment.

A sore point that was not even mentioned during the dinner was the issue that had brought about the whole royalty dispute between the big 4 record companies and TVB 5 years ago.  At the time, TVB had taken their JSG program and released it on DVD as well as VCD, however they did not pay the artists involved or their record companies the royalties that should have been due to them from the sale of those DVDs.   Due to this issue not even being acknowledged at the dinner, a few of the record company execs felt that TVB was trying to use their artists to garner support and hype up their own music programs.

Sandy Yu responds:  It was merely a ‘reunion dinner’

 Afterwards, we contacted the dinner’s host, TVB’s variety program director Sandy Yu, to ask about this ‘ice-breaking dinner’ with the record companies.  She responded:  “It was merely a reunion dinner.”  Towards the earlier royalty dispute that caused TVB’s relationship with the record companies to turn sour, Sandy denied that there was any negative impact to their relationship:  “Actually, the relationship never turned sour, it’s just that a few of the international record labels viewed the issue of copyright and royalties differently than we did.  They [those record labels] were only willing to grant us 2 years [license agreement for artists’ songs], which was way too short.    From a business standpoint, we were not able to come to an agreement, but we continue to negotiate and in recent years, there has been increased discussion on both sides – the record companies have been very understanding.”  Sandy emphasized that the dinner gathering was planned over a month ago and the atmosphere that night was actually quite good.  In fact, some people didn’t want to leave and even suggested that they should do these dinners every quarter to facilitate more communication between the record companies and TVB.

As for this year’s JSG Awards being held on December 20^th instead of January the following year, Sandy clarified:  “We are instituting a voting system this year, as we want everyone in HK to get the chance to participate and choose what music they like.  Since we (TVB) were the ones who started the ‘one person one vote’ system [TN: reference their Miss HK pageant several years ago], it makes sense that we should hold our music awards show first instead of last.   Actually, we (TVB) had once suggested having all 4 media organizations [TVB, CRHK, RTHK, Metro Radio] collaborate together on one unified awards ceremony so that there would be a ‘true’ music king and queen each year – we even volunteered to put money into producing the show, but the other media organizations refused, so we gave up on the idea.”

Voting system doesn’t truly reflect audience’s choices

Despite the ‘one person one vote’ system being implemented for JSG, someone at the dinner mentioned that with the rule of ‘no show, no award’, it still won’t be the true will of the people.  Towards this, Sandy expressed:  “Every year, we never say that an artist who doesn’t attend can’t get an award.”  Asked whether each award category will be subject to voting, Sandy clarified that it would only be limited to certain categories:  “The voting will only count for a portion.  There will also be an audience survey that we’ll be doing, which we’ve already hired a third party company to help us with -- they will call audiences up to ask for their feedback and those results will be incorporated for certain categories.  Actually, we tried to think of every possible method we could come up with.”

Towards the sentiment that some people felt this new system was TVB’s way of saving their own music programs while also attempting to boost the popularity of their own newcomers, Sandy denied and stated: “Why would we want to shoot ourselves in the foot like that?  In order for the music industry to truly prosper, the entire entertainment industry needs to prosper as well, otherwise it’s useless.  We truly do want to contribute more to the music industry and produce more music programs to support this cause.  To be honest, I don’t even have a budget for this, since making music requires time and patience, both of which we are willing to invest.”

One of the attendees at the dinner, hehA Music company’s representative Kawaii expressed her thoughts on what she observed at the dinner:  “It was a nice gesture, as it had been a long time since all the record companies last gathered.  The atmosphere was actually quite happy and comfortable.  While it’s true that there are many platforms for singers to choose from nowadays, TVB is still one of the biggest platforms so their influence can’t be ignored.  Actually, these types of dinner gatherings aren’t bad, since it allows everyone to share their opinions.”  Asked about her opinion toward TVB’s new policies, Kawaii stated:  “For us, things don’t change much, as our artists never had to sign a singer’s contract in order to appear on TVB’s shows.  The way it always worked is that we would sign a ‘pink paper’ agreement and that was it. [TN: the ‘pink paper’ is essentially a copyright release agreement that authorizes TVB to utilize the song in their productions and also sell overseas].  Besides, most of the artists under our management are overseas singers not based in HK, so the impact is not as great.”

Info on new HK independent film "The Merger" (我們停戰吧！)

Realizing that many people may not have heard too much about the HK film "The Merger" (我們停戰吧！), I decided to post up some info that I had gathered from various sources over the past few months.  Of course, this post won't be all-inclusive, since it will take me some time to dig up some of the older articles and interviews related to the movie that I had read several months ago.  I've actually been sharing tidbits of info here and there on AF and other sites, but it's a bit scattered so figured I would post the highlights here.  There's also an article that Skypost published last week that gives some pretty good insight into the movie, so I translated it and posted it below.

Here is some general info:

The cast for the movie consists of:  Frankie Lam, Patrick Tam, Rachel Lam, Kathy Yuen, Pinky Cheung, Meiki Wong, Samuel Kwok, Chan On Ying, Wilson Tsui Charles Ying, etc. (all former HKTV artists except Patrick and Pinky).  Also the director is Jimmy Luk (he directed HKTV’s To Be or Not To Be and Night Shift) – this is his first movie ever, as prior to this, he only directed TV series (for both TVB and HKTV).

Rachel Lam, who is also the lead actress, wrote the script.  Just a little background on Rachel – she actually wasn’t a scriptwriter prior to this – The Merger is her first script.  Prior to joining HKTV, she was a host for a few i-Cable shows and then went into acting, participating in a few HKTV series.  She decided to try her hand at scriptwriting, which she was interested in but didn’t really seriously pursue. After she wrote the script, she and Frankie happened to be filming Hidden Faces together for HKTV and hearing that he was interested in starting his own production company, she asked him if he would be willing to invest in her script. He was reluctant at first but after reading the script, he agreed. And since they were working for HKTV at the time, they decided to invite HKTV people to participate in the series (out of the main cast, the only 2 artists not affiliated with HKTV are Patrick Tam and Pinky Cheung). It was definitely a gamble from the beginning and the path from preparation to filming to distribution was difficult due to all the obstacles they encountered (more on this later).

Despite this movie being a small budget independent film with no big names in the cast (also no big name production team and no big name investors/backing), it was able to win 27 awards at various international film festivals, including major awards such as Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, etc.  Plus the movie has gotten quite a bit of critical acclaim and the feedback from audiences who have watched the movie (in pre-release) have been mostly positive.

Also, just some background on this movie’s ‘path’ to being released in HK.  Originally, when the movie was completed a few years back, the team (Rachel, Frankie) had approached various distributors in HK to discuss releasing it to general audiences in HK.  When distributors watched the film, they praised that it was a good movie, however they rejected the request to distribute in HK because 1) the cast had no ‘big names’ so most likely won’t attract audiences, and 2) the movie wasn’t “commercialized” enough (interpret that how you wish).  Since no one would give the movie the time of day in HK, the team decided to try entering it in various film festivals around the world (not a bad idea, since at least some people would see it).  Well, turns out that was the right move because the movie started sweeping up awards left and right – by the time it had swept up 15 awards, those HK distributors that had refused to release the film in HK theatres suddenly changed their tune.  They approached the production team and asked if they were still interested in distributing the movie in HK – well, now the film will be releasing in all HK theaters September 17^th.  By the way, the movie continued to rack up awards at the film festivals and now, the total count is 27 awards…very impressive!

Lastly, about the theme song – it's called "You Still Have Me" (你還有我)...the lyrics were written by Rachel Lam and she also sings the song.  The musical arrangement was done by Kong Fai (actor and one of HKTV’s musical directors).  The theme song MV was officially released last week, which I’ve linked up to below.  Also, here’s a link to Rachel’s blog where she explains in detail her inspiration for the song as well as why she ended up singing it (sorry, but the post is in Chinese).

The Merger Themesong

Below are a more few links.  I'll post up more stuff once I dig it up and have time to translate.  Meanwhile, if you're interested in watching various clips about the movie (including behind the scenes 'making of' clips, blessing ceremony, celebration dinners, and also fun clips from many of the cast's friends), check out Global Saga's Youtube page (Global Saga is the production company formed by Tony Wong, Rachel Lam, and Frankie Lam).  Here's the link:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFzBZ5bIRivXLpt6MpunxhQ

Official Trailer:

Themesong MV:

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News Article (originally published September 10, 2015).

Frankie Lam and Rachel Lam’s new film:  a teacher/student romance that gives local HK feel

Source:  Skypost

Forbidden love is a pretty common subject matter for movies.  A taboo love relationship – such as that between a teacher and a student – can become especially poignant yet at the same time oddly alluring when presented on the big screen.  On hearing the movie’s Chinese title (我們停戰吧!), the first thought that comes to mind is that The Merger is about teachers and students warring with each other – however, after diving into the plot, the movie actually isn’t about that at all.  Rather, the movie at its core is about a teacher/student love relationship, a story written in a way that is unique in that it gives off a completely local HK feel.   There are also references to major events in HK history interspersed throughout the movie that are sure to trigger collective memories of the past for local audiences who are familiar with them.  This element makes the romantic relationship in the movie all the more poignant and realistic. 

Helmed by HKTV’s former production team, The Merger does not have any ‘big names’ among its cast – yet it was still able to succeed in sweeping up 27 awards in various international film festivals around the world, included amongst those Best Actor and Best Actress awards for its leads Frankie Lam, Patrick Tam, and Rachel Lam.  The movie starts in the 1990s era with the story of high school student Yip Heung Heung (Rachel Lam), who falls in love with her old-fashioned, ultra-conservative teacher Koo Wah Sung (Frankie Lam) – a relationship that ends with a tragic death.  Many years later, during a visit to the high school, Heung Heung’s daughter Yip Ka Ka (Kathy Yuen) accidentally discovers a long-buried secret – that her foster mother was somehow involved in the death of her biological mother’s lover. 

In the movie, Frankie Lam and Rachel Lam have a few daring bed scenes.  Asked about this, Rachel laughed and expressed that filming intimate scenes in a torridly hot old building was definitely NOT romantic – throughout filming of those scenes, they grumbled constantly about the heat.  “It was scorchingly hot during the filming of those scenes, but I was afraid to move too much because I was nearly half-naked and didn’t want to overexpose myself.  It wasn’t romantic at all!  It was embarrassing to film kissing scenes too, as I felt like laughing and it was hard to keep it in.”

Most of us originally thought this movie was simply a sad but beautiful love story spanning 2 decades in HK, but Rachel – who is the scriptwriter as well as executive producer – revealed that one intent of the movie is that the teacher/student love story will lead audiences to reflect upon their own lives and attitude toward HK in the era leading up to the 1997 handover as well as afterwards.  Revealing a little bit of the plot, Rachel explained:  “With her rebellious nature, Heung Heung sees that the handover is approaching and so wants to leave HK.  But then Teacher Koo talks to her constantly about the city’s rich history and it causes her attitude to slowly change – she eventually realizes that leaving won’t resolve the problems they face.  In the end, when disaster befalls HK, she eventually sacrifices herself.”  Rachel further explained that the story weaves back and forth between pre and post-handover HK, utilizing a ‘story within a story’ method and theater stage play style to bring back collective memories of HK’s and China’s histories. 

TVB and OnTV collaboration: Midnight time slot series poll

Ok, so I was catching up on some entertainment news today and came across an article from on.cc (which I’ve linked up below).  In the article, on.cc – or, more accurately, their television division ON TV – officially announced yesterday (9/13) that they are collaborating with TVB on a special poll.  Together with TVB, they’ve chosen 10 ‘classic’ TVB series for netizens to vote on (via Facebook) during the 2 week timespan from 9/14 to 9/28 -- TVB has agreed to re-broadcast the series with the most votes in their midnight timeslot starting on 10/5 (once the currently airing series Time Before Time is finished).

According to the article, the voting will go through 2 phases:  in the first phase, OnTV will post detailed information about each series, including cast photos, plot summary, video clips, recommendations on ‘must-watch’ scenes, etc so that each person voting will supposedly have all the details they need to vote.  The second phase will launch next week, though OnTV didn’t give any details on what this phase consists of.  Also, a very important point – there is no limit to the number of series each person can vote for…so for example, if you like all 10 series, you can vote for all 10 if you want.

Before I list out the 10 series that OnTV and TVB chose, I just want to say this:  maybe I’m thinking too much into things, but I just find it very coincidental that I wrote about this EXACT SAME idea on my blog a few days before this whole thing got rolled out.  Technically, I wrote 2 posts on TVB midnight timeslot – the first one was in July in which I kind of ‘complained’ about TVB’s choice of series and informally gave them some ‘suggestions’ on the next series to air.  Then last week, I did a most detailed post on which series I would’ve chosen if I were the program lineup director.  In addition to that, I also relayed the suggestion of doing a poll to have audiences pick what they want to watch in that timeslot.  Well, looks like now the poll is actually happening – though the part I don’t understand is why OnTV is doing the poll rather than TVB themselves. [Sidenote:  Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but there’s a part of me that can’t help but think that OnTV is associated with TVB somehow.  I already suspected this a few weeks ago when I was able to trace a picture that a few websites had used back to OnTV’s video clip – in that picture, OnTV was reporting on news about Lesley Chiang and Fred Cheng’s breakup.  They interviewed Lesley while she was at HKTV’s dinner for their series Hidden Faces, yet in the picture, any reference to HKTV (including their logo and the name of their series) were all blurred out.  When I saw the picture, I had questioned why a mainstream media outlet -- which, in order to maintain credibility and reputability, should take a ‘neutral’ stance when reporting news – would have the need to ‘block out’ another company’s logo and all references to that company’s product (especially since they didn’t block out the logo to the commercial sponsors of that event, Vidal Sassoon).  I later discovered that the picture was ‘clipped’ from the news video posted on OnTV’s website – sure enough, when I went on to check, everything in the video referring to HKTV was blurred out.  This is the first time that I’ve actually seen a mainstream media outlet in HK take such ‘action’ against a company that is not one of their competitors.  Well, now this whole thing with the poll further fuels my ‘suspicion’ about OnTV’s position. I won't go too much into it here, since it's kind of irrelevant to this post, but will probably revisit this topic again later on.]

Now that I’ve said my piece about the poll and OnTV, here are the 10 series that OnTV and TVB have chosen for audiences to vote.  (Discerning readers will probably notice that a few of these series were on my ‘suggestions’ list as well, except my list was limited to series from the 80s and 90s eras only).

Here are the 10 series from OnTV (in no particular order):

War of the Genders (男親女愛) – 2000

Looking Back in Anger (義不容情) – 1989

The Duke of Mount Deer (鹿鼎記) – 1984

The Feud of Two Brothers (流氓大亨) – 1986

It Runs in the Family (孖仔孖心肝) – 1990

Detective Investigation Files (刑事偵緝檔案) – 1995

Don’t Look Now (執到寶) – 1980

Files of Justice (壹號皇庭) – 1992

Police Cadet (新紮師兄) – 1984

A Step Into the Past (尋秦記) – 2001

And which series do I vote for?  Without a doubt, definitely Looking Back in Anger (not hard to guess considering I’ve been ‘harping’ on TVB since July to air that series in their midnight timeslot and also relayed that thought in 2 blog posts).   Outside of that series, I really don’t want to vote for the others because I actually disagree with some of the series on the list.  I’m actually curious to know how they came up with these 10 choices because as a long-time TVB fan who is familiar with their series from the late 70s to now, there are definitely other more ‘classic’ series that would bump some of these series out of top 10 contention. I'll have to do a little more digging but hopefully, either OnTV or TVB explain their criteria for choosing these series somewhere on their website or FB pages.

Source links:  

OnTV Facebook page (series profiles)

on.cc article (brief series intros)

TVB’s midnight timeslot series – part 2 (follow up post)

Back in July, I wrote a post entitled “TVB’s midnight timeslot series” (read it here).  Well, it’s now September and due to some recent things that transpired, I felt the need to do this follow up post.

First….is it just me or has the ‘hype’ surrounding TVB’s midnight timeslot waned?  Does anyone know which series TVB is airing in that timeslot right now? (the answer is Time Before Time in case you haven’t heard)  I don’t blame you if you don’t because the Media sure didn’t ‘talk about’ it as much as they did the earlier series in that timeslot.  Why?  Not the Media’s fault (for once…lol) by any means.  Rather, the problem lies with TVB’s poor choice of subsequent series lineup, resulting in them not being able to keep up the momentum that had started with the airing of The Greed of Man in that timeslot.  Actually, this problem of TVB making stupid decisions is not new -- in fact, it’s such a common issue with them that they’ve actually become notorious for it over the past decade.   I mean, for a station that has been in existence for 48 years and is pretty much the only local option for ordinary Hong Kongers to watch free TV programming, TVB’s lack of proper decision-making ability is appalling!   The complaint over the years that TVB does not know how to properly utilize opportunities that stare them right in the face, but rather, they only know how to employ 24/7 in-your-face promotional tactics without regard for quality or value, is indeed very valid.  The way they handled the midnight timeslot series thing is yet another example of this.

In my earlier post about the midnight timeslot, I had informally given TVB a few suggestions on what they SHOULD HAVE aired following The Greed of Man that would’ve allowed them to maintain the ‘hype’ and ‘momentum’ they had gained.  Well, let me lay it out more clearly.  If I were the person responsible for putting together the midnight timeslot schedule, here’s what I would’ve done:  instead of airing The Justice of Life and The Final Verdict (2 great series for the record, but not ‘the best of the best’), the series I would’ve put in the line-up after TGOM is Looking Back in Anger -- um, hello, given this series’ popularity as well as impact on society and the fact that it has been hailed as one of TVB’s best productions of all-time -- well, to me, this is a NO-BRAINER!  (In my previous post, I actually gave my ‘speculations’ for why TVB decided not to air this series).  Then after that I would’ve aired another one of TVB’s greatest productions of all-time:  Blood of Good and Evil (if LBIA was TVB’s best series to come out of the 80s era, then BOGAE is surely their best series to come out of the 90s era!!) – again, this is also a NO-BRAINER.  With those 2 series alone, TVB would’ve had it made, as there are many many audiences who either haven’t seen these 2 series despite hearing such great things about them (probably because they were born after these series aired or they didn’t ‘follow’ TVB back then) or audiences who have seen these series but love them so much that they would jump at the opportunity to re-watch.  Personally, I fall into the latter category – despite the fact that I’ve re-watched both series more times than I can count AND I own both series as part of my TVB series collection, I have absolutely no problem pulling up a chair and doing nothing but stare at the TV screen for the hour or so that the series is on.

After both of those awesome series, next in my line-up would probably be The Breaking Point (another one of my favorites that I’ve watched a gazillion times), which, coincidentally, TVB is actually re-airing right now during the weekends here on their U.S. satellite channels [sidenote:  I’ve got to say that whoever puts together the lineup for TVB’s overseas satellite channels is much smarter than their counterpart in HK…lol].  TBP was a hugely popular series at the time it aired and rightfully so given the awesome cast and acting (though in my opinion, there were definitely issues with the script/story, but taken as a whole, it’s not hard to overlook those flaws).  Then, to give audiences a ‘break’ from all the heavy, serious dramas (which I personally don’t feel is necessary but fine), I would choose a light-hearted comedy to air.  Actually, from what I read, it sounded like this was TVB’s original intention back after The Greed of Man aired (to give audiences a break by airing something less ‘heavy’).  While that’s not a bad idea, unfortunately TVB picked the wrong series.  If they wanted to air a Stephen Chow classic, they should’ve picked The Final Combat instead, as that series was the most representative of Stephen’s TVB career and was truly the series that shot him to stardom (plus he was the lead in that series whereas he was only supporting in The Justice of Life).  Oh and let’s not forget that while Stephen did show a bit of his trademark ‘mo lei tou’ comedy style in TJOL, it was really in The Final Combat that it’s unleashed in full force – plus the series was unique in terms of being a ‘wuxia comedy’ (which was a rarity back then, since most of the wuxia dramas at the time were pretty serious).

Speaking of wuxia…..how many times have you heard audiences complain about the lack of true wuxia series the past 15 years?  I, for one, hear that complaint every year and my response is always the same:  TVB can’t make wuxia series like they used to – they lack the resources for one and two they lack the know-how (I’m talking about the ‘traditional’ skills and knowledge involved in choreographing complicated fight scenes and working with wiring, not the crappy, fake CGI stuff that they love to use nowadays).  Of course, the fact that they no longer have the rights to remake Jin Yong’s works also doesn’t help (not that I would want another JY remake, as there have been way too many already, plus the remakes get worse every decade).  In terms of program line-up though, to feed the wuxia series drought, I would’ve seized the opportunity to re-broadcast a few classic wuxia series in that timeslot -- anyone familiar with the old days of TVB would know that there are plenty of great wuxia series from the 80s to choose from – for example: Legend of the Condor Heroes, Return of the Condor Heroes, The New Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre, The Two Most Honorable Knights, etc. – all are good choices in terms of wuxia classics that were popular back in the day and absolutely well-made/produced (plus, judging from the comments I’ve heard over the years, it’s obvious that many of the newer generation audiences have not seen the JY remakes from the 80s – well, this would give them the opportunity to see why us old-timers keep praising the 80s remakes as ‘the best’).

If we go back to modern series, other great choices include:  The Bund, Police Cadet ’84 as well as its sequel Police Cadet ’85 (don’t bother with the third and final installment, Police Cadet ’88, because it sucked), The Feud of Two Brothers, The Challenge of Life, Files of Justice, Detective Investigation Files, etc.  I could keep going on forever on this topic actually (I’ve got plenty more ‘classics’ that I would definitely include in the lineup), but I think those of you reading this get my drift already.  

In addition to airing all these series, the other thing I would’ve done is ‘poll the audience’ – meaning that I would send out a survey to audiences with the question:  “Which classic series from the 80s/90s era do you most want to see re-broadcasted in the midnight timeslot?” (keyword here is ‘80s/90s era’ because unfortunately, everyone’s definition of ‘classic’ is different).  This method sounds familiar, you say?  Yes, very discerning!  This is the exact thing that those ‘smart’ people over at HKTV did when they were preparing to launch their station last year – they put up a poll on their website and asked audiences to vote for which series (out of the 16 series they had produced) they wanted to watch first.  As we all know, the outcome was that their political-themed series The Election came out on top.  Originally, the plan was for HKTV to air their cop-themed series The Borderline as their debut series due to the tremendous reception the first episode had garnered months earlier during its ‘test run’ on Youtube.  But last minute, they decided to do a poll instead (which is not surprising since HKTV has had heavy interaction with audiences from the getgo – much unlike TVB who doesn’t give a crap about what their audiences think/feel/want).  I’m sure they were thinking that The Borderline would end up being the winner (so they could just move forward with original plan) but surprisingly (well, maybe not given that this was post-Occupy timeframe), their newest filmed series The Election ended up garnering the most votes (with The Borderline coming in at second place).  So what did HKTV do?  Well, this is where the ‘smart’ part kicks in (no, I didn’t use that word just because I felt like it):  they decided to air both series simultaneously – The Election was aired first, debuting on the weekend, and The Borderline followed right after, debuting the following weekday [sidenote:  for those wondering why The Election aired on a weekend, it’s because the series had just wrapped filming and there was still post-production work that needed to be done on it – by airing it once a week instead of every day, it gave the production team more time to complete the post-production].  So it ended up being a win/win situation for both sides:  the audiences got their pick (The Election) and HKTV still got to move forward with their original plan (air The Borderline as debut series).   See, it’s not that difficult to make audiences happy – so why can’t TVB get it right?? 

In any case, it’s obviously ‘too little too late now’, since TVB already lost their momentum with the midnight timeslot and who knows whether they will be able to gain it back (I highly doubt they can with the idiotic management team running the station currently).  Such a shame!  It’s sad how ‘not in tune’ TVB’s current management team is with their own programming and the station’s history / trends.  My advice:  change out this management team and get people in there who actually know what they are doing and can make proper decisions.  Otherwise….well just take one look at ATV – seeing what happened to them should be enough motivation for TVB to want a competent management team in place that is capable of making wise decisions that actually benefit the station.  I know it’s wishful thinking on my part but hey, I tried….

TVB series recommendations from the years 1990 and 1991

This is part 6 in a multi-part series of posts about TVB series from the 80s (and now 90s) era that I recommend.  Please read this Introductory post for details about how this came about:  TVB series recommendations from the years 1980 and 1981.

** Note:  I used Wikipedia in conjunction with TVB’s website and a few other sources to gather the information for each series.  Note that the cast lists are not all-inclusive and the English song titles are rough translations.**

Here's my list of recommendations from 1990 and 1991: