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Wednesday, October 25, 2017

News Article: Hong Kong’s top TV channels ranked – Media Report 2017

I came across the below article that recaps the top TV channels in Hong Kong based on a Marketing survey..  Details of the survey (including criteria, how it was conducted, number of responses, etc.) are all recapped at the beginning of the article.

I'm actually super-surprised to see ViuTV in the number one spot!  Since they launched last year, I always felt that they had a niche audience, since their programs and the station itself is not covered much in traditional / mainstream media outlets…but I guess advertisers think differently.  In a way, this is a good thing because it means that advertisers are not being biased toward TVB like almost everyone else in HK is and they are willing to put their support behind underdogs that have potential.  Actually, on second thought, I really shouldn't be surprised, since advertisers had already said previously (back when HKTV was still in the picture) that many in their field are tired of TVB's "same old same old" approach and are willing to put their money into other stations that show potential.  This is partly why Ricky Wong was never worried about whether he would get advertising support if HKTV were to get a license and officially launch...I vaguely remember (would need to pull my notes to confirm) that the advertising association in HK (of which almost all advertising firms were a part of) had released a statement back then that they would commit advertising to HKTV if they were to launch (since that was a huge concern back then due to TVB constantly crying a river over advertising revenue dropping).  [Sidenote – I've actually been keeping an eye on ViuTV the past year and while they got off to a rocky start due to their initially upside down policy of only doing infotainment programs rather than series, they've definitely turned things around in recent months with the focus on producing series rather than only infotainment programs.  While I doubt that they will be the next HKTV, it's good to see that ViuTV is finally coming into its own…though of course, it has a LONG ways to go to catch up to TVB…]

The other shocker for me was seeing TVMost on this list (they came in at #8) – for a non-official TV station whose sole purpose is to parody other stations / programs / people, etc., that's actually quite an achievement!  [Shout out to sport3888:  I'm sure you must be grinning from ear to ear right now!  LOL!]

The other interesting part is that ViuTV made the list, but their parent company, cable channel NowTV, didn't make the cut at all, which in a way I'm not too surprised about since there have been complaints galore about NowTV over the past few years (I can't remember whether it was Alan Tam or Hacken Lee who always used to complain on Weibo about NowTV because they carry a lot of sports events and the reception was always super poor quality….I've heard that people were actually happy to cancel their subscriptions at one point).  

Anyway…check out who else made the top 10.  Did any of these rankings shock you?  Feel free to comment down below. 

**Note:  My apologies for not putting the pictures from the article up – I'm posting this from my phone and the process to post pictures is super cumbersome.  If I remember, I'll fix the post when I'm able to access from a computer…otherwise, if you want to see the pictures, you can read the article from its original source via the link below.

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Hong Kong's top TV channels ranked – Media Report 2017

Source:  Marketing Interactive

Each year Marketing undertakes one of its most significant research projects to discover the media preferences of Hong Kong's top marketers.
The aim of the Media Benchmarking Survey is pretty simple; to understand which media platforms marketers look to for advertising solutions across digital, outdoor, TV, radio and print platforms.
We ask respondents to name the magazine, TV station, digital platform or OOH groups they would use to target consumers across key industry verticals from luxury, local business and finance, news and current affairs, property, travel and consumer electronics.
This article we highlight the top 10 in TV broadcasters.
Methodology
How did we achieve this?
The media rankings were derived from questions in Marketing Research's annual Media Spend Benchmarking Survey. Marketing Research employed an online questionnaire and surveyed its database of client advertisers and marketing services agency professionals. All answers given by respondents were considered by Marketing when finalising the rankings.
Quality recipients and respondents
A total of 587 respondents participated in the Media Spend Benchmarking Survey. Genuine advertising decision-makers and influencers across key agency-using industries were well represented as were agency professionals from various marketing services.
Over 80% of client advertiser-side respondents were manager-level decision-makers and above, with 10% from the most senior ranks of client advertisers – CEOs, MDs or GMs – and another 31% were VPs or director-level marketers.
Twenty percent of the respondents from the agency side were CEOs, MDs or GMs, 30% were marketing personnel, while 25% were sales personnel. The remaining 25% were operations, creative and media personnel.
Advertisers from major and local international banks, FMCG companies, property and construction, IT and telecommunication firms, as well as those from travel and tourism companies participated in the survey. Agency professionals across the marketing services spectrum were also well represented.
Television Broadcasters of the Year
1 ViuTV
Currently in its second year of operation, ViuTV has taken the TV world by storm as it now leads the category for local marketers. The channel operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and its English arm ViuTVsix offers 17 hours of programming per day, including three to four hours of news and public affairs, lifestyle, overseas dramas and documentaries, such as HBO originals True Blood and Boardwalk Empire.
The channel's rapid rise to fame did not go unnoticed, as it swiped up numerous at Marketing's The Spark Awards 2017, including gold awards for Fast Growth, Best Launch/Relaunch and Best Engagement Strategy, as well as silver awards in Best Entertainment Platform and Best Use of Content.
2 TVB
While TVB slipped to second place this year – in no small part due to the entry of a new local challenger – it still managed to keep a spot in the top three on the year of its 50th anniversary. To better compete with the rise of streaming services, TVB launched its own social live streaming app dubbed 'Big big channel' in a bid to engage younger, internet-savvy viewers and generate more ad revenue – a move that has clearly paid off, especially considering the modern TV landscape.
3 Bloomberg
After a slide to sixth spot last year, Bloomberg is back in the top three. Headquartered in New York, USA, and a division of Bloomberg LP, the news agency covers international news, disseminated through television, terminals, radio, markets, the Bloomberg website, Bloomberg's mobile platforms and Businessweek.
While their digital offering is comprehensive, they haven't forgotten about traditional formats and recently opened a new TV studio in Hong Kong to enhance the brand's media technology assets, which will produce programmes covering all of Asia.
4 BBC
Down one spot since last year, the UK-headquartered public service broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has strengthened its mobile and online offerings to facilitate changing tastes. While its World Service radio broadcast was recently replaced on RTHK, the TV side is still going strong.
5 CNN
CNN likewise slid down one spot in the rankings this year. Staffed 24 hours, seven days a week by a staff both in CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and in global bureaus, the broadcaster boasts a global team of almost 4,000 news professionals, and has recently expanded its presence in Hong Kong, when it appointed Karen Vera as creative lead for in-house brand studio Create, Asia Pacific.
6 Cable TV
Cable TV has been on a gradual descent over the past few years, and 2017 was no exception as it dropped from fifth place into sixth.
With the uncertain future of i-CABLE Communications Limited' TV offerings earlier this year, i-CABLE announced that Forever Top (Asia) Limited had become a controlling shareholder and injected new funds into the business last month. Additionally, the board underwent a number of changes as the company enters its next phase of development. New offerings include over 200 live games from German soccer league Bundesliga.
7 CNBC
CNBC enters the list this year, with a strong financial backbone to support it. CNBC is one of the world's largest business and financial networks. With international headquarters in Singapore in London, CNBC provides comprehensive 24-hour coverage from Asia to America, and beyond. In addition to the television services, CNBC is also available on tablet, mobile and desktop via CNBC.com and its apps.
8 TVMost
Satirical magazine 100most's TV service, while wholly offline, has grabbed enough marketshare for marketers to list it among the region's top TV channels. The channel provides satirical news services, often parodising existing programmes and channels to present the latest news in an entertaining and humourous way, presented by a slew of local celebrities.
Its Chinese slogan is: "Do our best instead of not having a TV licence issued by the government" – roughly translated to "Doing our best, despite the lack of a TV licence".
9 RTHK
Hong Kong's public broadcasting service Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) keeps its spot in ninth place this year. The service operates seven radio channels, and three TV channels, and produces educational, entertainment and public affairs programmes that are also broadcast on commercial channels. RTHK, like many public broadcasters, is directly funded by annual government allocation and operates as a department of the Communications Authority, but maintains a strong reputation for impartial coverage and editorial independence.
10 Fox
CBS Corporation earlier this year announced a content licensing and trademark agreement for SHOWTIME in South East Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The agreement brought the SHOWTIME brand to these markets for the first time, including international hits like Twin PeaksCalifornication and Dexter.

7 comments:

  1. Wow ViuTV taking no.1 spot is very surprising. Honestly if I had to guess I would think TVMost would get the no.1 spot since their advertisements are so popular and they had 90+ Million? in revenue from them. So much that they applied to enter the stock market.
    I wish TVMost would eventually film their own tv series their creativity and scripts for their ads are far better than what TVB or ViuTV has being doing.

    I'm actually quite disappointed in ViuTV, they started off great and had a gem in Margaret and David: Green Bean's directors yet they allowed the same TVB top down power play screw things up. It turned into a power struggle between producers and the directors which lead to the directors leaving swearing to never film for them again. (Time has proven that the directors were right and all series produced by LamFongMoTang has flopped include the prequel to M&D aka "EX". Their low budget and low level of stars in their other series doesn't help either. The new series filmed by Gregory Wong called Plan B is another detective series but cast is nonexistent.

    影视兄弟有限公司 Visual Brother's Limited web series looks much more on par with HKTV's ideals which is quite sad considering they are not a production house and not a tv station either.

    The way I see it unless ViuTV gets their series and quantity to be on the level of HKTV's previous series they are only going to continue losing money.

    Honestly I truly hope the 2nd partner now CEO of HKTV will resume productions and focus on web series and being like Netflix after seeing the success of OCTB.

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    Replies
    1. @sport: I haven’t been following TVMost as close as you have so I’m sure you know more about how they’re doing than I do. I think for me, the shock of seeing them on the list was due to them not being an official TV station like the rest of the ones on there….but when you talk about how much advertising they were getting, it makes sense then that they are on this list. I’ve only popped in to watch a few things here and there from them (mostly due to time constraints on my part) but so far, I do like what I see…there’s no doubt that their team is very creative, which is something that the HK entertainment industry as a whole sorely lacks at the moment.

      I understand your viewpoints on ViuTV and I have to say I agree. They are nowhere near on par with HKTV and I honestly don’t think they ever will be. Green Bean was definitely a gem and it’s a shame that ViuTV hasn’t been able to reproduce that series’ success in most of their subsequent works. With EX, despite the draw of having Anthony Wong and Patricia Ha reunite, it obviously didn’t help, since neither of them were leads so they had very little screen time to start with…personally, from the moment they announced they were filming this installment of Margaret and David but switching out the leads, I kind of already sensed it wouldn’t work out. To me, part of the charm with Green Bean was the story yes, but also the freshness of the pairings and also the brilliant acting…sure, I did feel that Bowie Lam was kind of miscast as David due to his age, but his acting more than made up for it and the more I watched, the more I liked his pairing with Catherine.

      With that said though, I do think it’s a good thing that they are focusing on series now rather than infotainment programs – in fact, that’s what they should’ve done from the beginning (I think I’ve been “complaining” about this for at least a year already, lol). I think anyone with a brain who is even remotely familiar with how the HK entertainment industry works would’ve been able to tell them that a 99% infotainment model isn’t going to work in HK – not with HK audiences so obsessed with TV series. To this day, I still don’t understand what ViuTV’s management was thinking launching with that type of model – they essentially wasted a year’s worth of time when they could’ve hit the floor running…

      Their previous few series were definitely nothing worth shouting about but in recent weeks, I have seen some potential in ViuTV as of late. The series that they just finished airing – the one called My Very Short Marriage, starring Eason Chan, was actually pretty good. Normally I probably wouldn’t bother watching this series since I’m not fond of the cast and the style seems typical ViuTV, plus the acting is nothing to write home about -- but then I found out that the screenwriter for the series is my favorite playwright, Candace Chong….this is her first foray into writing scripts for TV series so as a fan, I’m definitely supporting her. I love all of the stage plays that Candace has written, so knowing that she helmed the script for this series, I had utmost confidence going into it that the script (story, dialogue, etc.) would be good (and I was right…Candace definitely didn’t disappoint in terms of the script). Sure, the series did kind of end up being a pseudo-promo tool for Eason, since he released 2 new songs that were specifically written for the series in conjunction with its airing, but if the series has quality, I can live with that piece. I’m hoping that ViuTV continues to go down this path and collaborate with people who really can bring quality and elevate their series to a higher level (like Candace Chong was able to do with her awesome script for this series).

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    2. @sport: While I agree that Visual Brothers’ web series and overall philosophy / company vision is more in-line with HKTV’s, I’m still a little hesitant with them seeing that OCTB was technically their first series and there hasn’t been enough “experience” with them yet for me to say for sure whether they will truly turn out like HKTV or go in a different direction altogether. One of the things that made HKTV so unique was that they had a leader (Ricky Wong) who was essentially fearless and didn’t give a crap whose feathers he ruffled – he deliberately went against the long-established system in the hopes of revitalizing the industry and while it did end up backfiring on him in the end, there were still quite a few successes that came out of the whole ordeal. The Menu is of course the best testament to that, though there were other examples too (I actually liked quite a few of their series – it was so refreshing to finally be able to get that “chasing series” feeling with their series after nearly a decade of not experiencing that with TVB due to the mostly crappy series they had been churning out). So far, Visual Brothers production team has done a good job with following through on their promises and focusing on the quality aspect and I absolutely applaud their sincere effort with OCTB…and yes, reading / watching all those interviews with Jones, Danny, Sam, etc. where they spell out their philosophy and such has been very encouraging….but part of me is still wary about the Mainland aspect with their company and I can’t help but wonder whether they will eventually cave in to the pressure in the future if things get to the point where they have no choice but to accommodate. At least with HKTV, that was never a worry, since it was quite obvious where RW stood in regards to that (which of course was one of the things that did him in at the end…).

      I’m not familiar enough with HKTV’s other CEO to determine whether he will told true to Ricky Wong’s vision for HKTV if his company were to start up filming again, which is why I haven’t been too stoked on the idea of them resuming operations. Also, the HK television landscape has changed so much the past 2 years that I’m not entirely confident things will necessarily work out for them…as I said before though, I will still continue to support them if they do decide to resume filming, just not sure how things are going to look like by that time…

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    3. You can't really blame visual brothers for their Mainland aspect. Realistically it is a business and they need to make money. I'm sure although they gained fame and recognition for OCTB and a lot of hits, I have a feeling they still lost money outside Mainland by being a web series and airing for free on Youtube (at least what I gather from the facebook posts and their spoof)

      Even though it was Mainland money, they still managed to focus on being HK (with some minor painting of UK being in bad light).

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    4. @Phixster: True...actually, after watching the dinner finale clips, looks like they did lose money...and most likely when they put the series back up after edits, audiences won't be able to watch for "free" anymore.

      I definitely understand the need to possibly "accommodate" Mainland in the future and while I still won't be happy with it, if that's the reality then so be it. But I hope they won't compromise too much and still maintain the HK aspect as much as possbile because to be honest, I'm tired of all the HK/Mainland collaborations where the emphasis is on Mainland and HK audiences' needs are neglected. Sure, it's the "new reality" we live in and there probably will be no avoiding it, but still...

      Yea, the media is claiming that the series was accepted in Mainland because it painted UK in a bad light, though honestly, they are making a big deal out of nothing because it's not like OCTB team deliberately did that -- that's how things truly were back then and OCTB was merely trying to stay true to history...which is one of the things that I actually applaud them for, as it's obvious they paid attention to the historical context and incorporated that into the series as well (which not all productions do).

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    5. @Phixster & @sport: Ok, I take back the comment about Mainland investment with Visual Bros and OCTB. Jones Soong clarified in an HK01 interview yesterday that all of the money they used to film OCTB season 1 was from HK investors and HK companies – there was no “Mainland money” used. Where Mainland comes into play is that they sold the broadcasting rights to Youku (which is a Mainland streaming platform) in the hopes of reaching a wider audience, but Mainland wasn’t involved in the production at all. This is definitely good news in my book! :-)

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