ContentAsia December 2022

C NTENT

The Big Hope: Industry leaders on 2023 New Year trends & influences

What’s

Asia’s industry obsession of the moment (in addition to when Disney’s shake-up is coming to the region & what’s next for Warner Bros Discovery) is about making a “global show”, which too often, sadly, means how to copy Squid Game. It’s the great how-to of our times, now that Covid-mania has largely passed and anyone who dreamed of sourdough cultures either has done it or has given up.

My new year resolution is, the minute Squid Game is mentioned, to stop making polite noises about there being no harm aiming high to mask what I really want to ask: Squid Game is Hwang Dong-hyuk’s story; what’s yours? How much, exactly, are you prepared to put into making your vision a reality? How hard are you prepared to think? What boundaries are you prepared to push? If you aren’t or can’t, go home. Go fishing. Do something else less risky and where the wins are more certain. But definitely do not tell me how you want to be the creator of the next Squid Game, or Squid Game meets [whatever]. Please. Thank you. Hwang famously went broke writing the original Squid Game script. It took 10+ years before Netflix said yes, hoping for the best, but, by their own admission, they also couldn’t have known for sure. The history of hits is littered with rejection: Sony didn’t think Leonard Cohen’s Various Positions, which included Hallelujah, was good enough to release in the U.S. Van Gogh sold few paintings in his life; most were traded for food or art supplies.

At this time every year we ask the industry what their #bighope is. Here’s mine: May Asian storytellers stop wanting to be who they are not. May they tell the stories they really, truly, deeply believe in. And may they get the support they need to give them life

what’s inside... (con’t)

#Onehopekids 2023

We asked people leading content direction for young audiences in Asia about their biggest hope for kids programming in the region in 2023.

Up cycle

Malaysian free-TV giant Media Prima enters 2023 on its best foot in years. Nini Yusof, TV Networks’ deputy CEO, talks about recordbreaking shows, content sales, partnerships and alliances.

26

TCCF 2022

Taiwan’s entertainment industry is heading into the new year with a record- breaking achievement. Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) drew its largest audience ever! A total of 60,000 visits –more than double the footfall in 2021 – at nearly 100 events.

Brought to you by TAICCA

Story beats

Thai executive producer, Mayker-Y’s Yossinee Na Nakorn, has given the market reinterpretations of well-loved romances like The Frenemy and My Secret Bride. Between those and 2023’s To the Moon and Back, she has honed her taste for character-driven stories, more complex motivations and universal themes.

Way of the Dragon

Korea’s Studio Dragon leads the K-drama boom. EP/IP strategy GM, Lee Ki-hyuk, talks about growth and expansion every which way.

The hope is that kids’ content will help instill good moral values and life lessons so that kids grow up happy and hopeful. Good values and exposure will help influence how kids navigate life as they will learn about their surroundings, issues and how to manage their emotions.”

page 16

30-year Itch

India’s Zee Entertainment cel ebrates its 30th anniversary this year, facing what some say is its biggest challenge yet – merg ing with Sony Pictures Networks. At the same time, the company is pushing the boundaries on content creation, global co-pro ductions & streaming.

The Big 4

Doctor in the house

Philippines’ director, Connie Macatuno, and Thai EP, Teddy Sutthikulphanich, talk about their challenges and choices in adapting U.K. scripted series, Doctor Foster, for their markets.

Children’s rights

Kids rights holders and distribu tors talk about monetising con tent in Asia, the changes they’re seeing in buying patterns in the region and, among other top of mind issues as the year draws to a close, their favourite strategies for putting their shows in the right places at the right times.

Playing catch-up

Turns out an awkward lawyer with Asperger’s syndrome has more staying power around the world than zombies running amok in a high school. But, de pending on how you look at it, it may be the zombies that won. A comparison of some of Netflix’s mostviewed K-dramas...

It’s an extremely creative space, and we hope to see more new content/ IPs being introduced and breaking into the market.”

Sharmin Parameswaran, VP, VOD/ PPV & International, Astro Malaysia

Boom bosses

Indonesian production house Screenplay Films is at the forefront of the streaming boom. SVP streaming, Anthony Buncio, talks about production priorities, demands and realities.

That the creative community and content providers stay focused on the audience. More than any other content genres, the influential nature of children’s programming brings with it a heavy responsibility – nurturing and shaping the minds of next generations.”

Junaidah Khan, Head of Operations, Qalbox page 16

Broad strokes

Singapore’s Mediacorp has long moved past its former singular identity as a freeTV broadcaster. In her first broad-ranging interview since she became Mediacorp’s chief content officer, Virginia Lim talks about content and co-production direction, and the advantages and challenges of a broad remit that has to satisfy everything from streaming entertainment and digital content services to niche audiences and mass market public service broadcasting.

22

Soul heir

“You cannot escape the past,” Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz told Sara Merican in a conversation about When the Waves Are Gone, his three-hour 2022 film about a cop and a man he helped put in prison.

34

Sing out loud

Malaysia’s Astro has a welldocumented transformation plan that stretches from becoming the home of 3rdparty streaming apps to commissioning a broader range of originals. Content director, Agnes Rozario, talks about a new era of storytelling and other priorities.

48

Ayan’s Astraverse

Indian cinema has long strug gled to create franchises and to use Indian mythology to cre ate big cinema. Vanita KohliKhandekar spoke to Brahmastra director, Ayan Mukerji, about forging new paths.

Family ties

Taiwanese family series, Papa & Daddy, is part of the next wave of LGBTQ-themed stories, with, among other elements, grownup characters, kids, ex-wives, blended families, career con flicts, elderly parents, expanded storylines... Zhu Zijiao talks to writer/director Nancy Chen.

Big Pictures

Sonia Fleck’s Asia-based distribution and production house, Bomanbridge Media, is upsizing its slate with original production, development and investment in global properties, taking bigger and more ambitious Asian stories to audiences everywhere and bringing international stories home. Brought to you by Bomanbridge Media

36

True story

52

True CJ Creations has ambitious creative goals that have brought the market Thai versions of hit Korean dramas, including Voice, Tunnel, Unlucky Ploy & the upcoming Start-Up and Good Doctor. Co-CEO, Ari Arijitsatien, talks about re-imagining Korean stories, building a studio system in Thailand based on Korea’s Studio Dragon model, and what’s next.

76 Programme Picks

In the run up to this year’s ATF, here’s what’s at the top of our watch lists.

82 Sweet spot

The original Malaysian story of a man promised a life of luxury as a sugar baby has put Chinese streamer iQiyi in a sweet spot.

watch list 2023

Upgraded story-telling, especially out of Indonesia and Thailand and, of course, out of India, which has taken to the premium series space as if born to it, even if some predictions from the best in the industry are that it will take another five years at least before Indian TV dramas are magnificent enough to travel widely around the world. Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore are giving their all to push quality, focusing on domestic audiences, hoping for the best from whatever regional/international partnerships they can forge, and furiously selling rights to streamers who need lots of local IP while they ramp up their own production.

Ongoing surprises from the subscription on-demand/SVOD environment as distribution shape-shifts, alliances between programmers and platforms evolve, directto-consumer remains more difficult than many realised, and the industry figures out that, sometimes, what consumers say they want and what they will do given the right offer/price are entirely different. In Singapore, for instance, people value discounts more than they do content, which comes third on the priority list, according to Media Partners Asia/AMPD research. Who would have thought?

LGBTQ+ stories aren’t going back into the closet in Asia. The absolute opposite is happening, and streamers are standing their ground on censorship. Most recently iQiyi followed Netflix into “take-down” territory, choosing to remove titles like Thai original, Kinnporshe The Series La Forte, from Singapore rather than chop bits out. If that was even possible. Star Hunter Entertainment’s BL series, Big Dragon, recently dropped on iQiyi; same, same on the Singapore release. iQiyi says the titles will go back up after the platform has finished installing censorship software that allows users to activate access controls one title at a time. So let’s see. Our bet is that Prime Video, Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV+ and others will stand their ground too. Given global demands for diversity and inclusion, imagine if they didn’t.

Korea is already on a roll…now determined, more than ever, to be “international”; what those stories look like remains to be seen, but the result they’re after? Squid Game-type performance, of course. 2 billion+ hours viewed make The Squid ultra-tough to beat though. Our bet is that (other than Squid Game 2, which is on its way) the Asian show that will topple the Netflix original will also have its roots in Korea, although, with all the new production alliances being forged and strengthened, the next Asia-focused hit may well have as much outside involvement as it does Asian. Meanwhile, even Netflix has come nowhere close to Squid Game’s record global viewing hours. From Asia, All of Us Are Dead is close to 660 million and Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which was still on the top 10 as we went to press, is around 657 million (See page 68/69). What we definitely don’t think will happen across the rest of the industry is Netflix-style transparency on consumption. But here’s the thing: if anyone was hitting those kinds of streaming numbers, we are pretty sure we would be hearing about it. So...

“FASCINATING

RICH-TO-EVEN-MORE RICHES STORY” - DAILY MAIL

Women’s issues are quite close to your heart. So you paid a lot of attention to women surviving that and being subject to that you didn’t sugarcoat. It was something important to you, not to sugarcoat.

Yeah. It wasn’t a march to the many women who had domestic violence. And going through domestic violence and I wanted them to identify and see themselves and vindicate themselves as the story goes along, you know, like once you’ve connected to the character of Dr. Jill, you ride along with what goes on in her life. And you want to see her be empowered, you know, go beyond what this scenario is about. Her triumph is the audience’s triumph, her heartaches, her trials that she’s going through are the same troubles that the audience go through, and I actually received some messages talking about how they got affected by that scene in an intense way. Some, even though they are not in a violent domestic situation, are also connected to it because you want to protect another woman from being treated in this way if you can.

How did you deal with it? I don’t disclose too much. I know you’re still way early in this process. But how did you deal with that scene where she first kind of and there’s a director as well that I just I’ll point out you produce this but how do you deal with that first realisation where she’s not actually sure she’s going crazy or not. She kind of knows there’s something weird going on, but it could be her, it could be real, it could be.

As you mentioned, we actually haven’t shot that scene yet.

Yeah. And it could turn out really different so maybe don’t commit to anything. But how are you thinking?

I think because all the writers and the directors as well, watched the original version of Dr. Foster. So what we envisage would be something quite similar because, you know, we found that that scene is actually quite universal. So that’s what we thought but, unlike the Philippines, we are still in a really early stage of shooting. So we just finished, like, I think five or six shootings up till now. I haven’t actually mentioned the script. Some of the script is still work in process, it hasn’t been actually approved by BBC yet.

Some of it is very much a work in progress so I could share everything that you’re sharing. And if I could take a chance to just step back a bit from Dr. Foster, this is the first U.K. adaptation you’ve made, but you’re not, you’re no stranger to adaptations. But you’ve chosen Japanese before. Tell us a little bit about what you’ve chosen before and why you chose those.

So yeah, we did the Nippon format before. I think twice already. One of them is called Mother. The other one is actually Abandoned.

So both from Nippon TV. Really dramatic as well.

Teddy: [00:29:53]

Yes, we made those for the OTT platform in Thailand called Line TV. So why we chose it is because we found that the theme of the story is quite universal. So, similar to why we chose Dr. Foster. Mother is all about motherhood. You know, the key message is that, you know, anyone can be a mother, it doesn’t have to be the one who actually, you know, gives birth to, I think that is something that is easy to understand for the audiences. For Abandoned it’s talking about children who don’t have a mother or father. So it’s also a family drama and the theme is universal and it’s something that hasn’t actually been told in Thailand before compared to other Lakhon so I think those are the main reasons why we chose those.

watch list 2023

Producers – led by Korea – will be bolder about rights negotiations. It’s already happening, forcing global streamers to stand down (or at least back off) from their all-rights-or-none stand. Of course it’s a good idea for production houses to share in the spoils of success. It’s also way too easy to judge creators for not being more balsy up front; if you had been trying to make Squid Game for 10 years, and everyone had said no until Netflix came along, what would you have done? Lesson learned. Moving on... the blurring of what’s a true original and what’s a licensing deal with a dollop of ego and an executive producer credit in exchange for some level of exclusive window will continue. Does anyone care? The notion of ‘original’ is all so murky and devalued by now, so maybe not. Or not anymore. What’s already happening is a patchwork of rights where platforms take what will earn them the most loyalty/paying subs and let others have the rest.

Formats in Asia fared a whole lot better in 2022 than they did in 2021, with a 30% rise in the number of formats on air or commissioned in the first six months of this year compared to 1H 2021 (source: ContentAsia’s Formats Outlook). Full year 2022 numbers won’t be in until early 2023, but there is reason for optimism driven by higher-value drama projects such as Korea’s Flower of Evil adaptation in India – a first for the market – and All3Media’s Liar by Min Lim’s Double Vision for Astro in Malaysia. Do we think there will be a 2022 or 2023 return to highs of 285 recorded in first half 2017? In a word? No.

The mergers (and the fallout) we’re watching... Zee/Sony in India, scheduled to close in early 2023. So many questions and issues swirling around that one, not least of which is what streaming platform – the domestic SonyLiv or Zee5 with its global footprint – will be left standing. And then there’s Jio and Viacom, which have been cleared by India’s fair trade regulators to combine OTT forces. In Korea, domestic streamers TVing (CJ ENM) and Seezn (KT) have also been given the regulatory green light to join up; the upsized TVing is supposed to be kicking off in December 2022 with a combined paid subs market share of about 18% (13% TVing/5% Seezn), which the country’s fair trade bosses say is just fine (Netflix’s Korea share is over 38%, Disney+ has less than 6%).

Streaming has driven budgets to record highs in Asia, but it’s magical thinking to imagine the fairy dust landed on everyone equally in 2022. Or will in 2023. We think production budgets will be up, down and every which way depending on the platform. On the top end, there’s much energy going into upsizing co-production and co-funding relationships to make bigger, better shows. And then there are the lo-lo-lower budget productions, with newbie writers and social media stars loving what they think is the glamour of TV on a budget of like US$10,000 an hour or something. Imagine that. Right now, spending on premium drama in Indonesia is topping out at about US$270,000 per episode for very nice drama. At pretty much its lowest, Korea is double that (Extraordinary Attorney Woo cost about US$600,000 per episode; Squid Game cost US$2.5 million per episode). Average Taiwan drama budgets are about US$300,000 an hour. In Southeast Asia, drama still gets made in Malaysia for RM100,000/US$22,000 an hour or less; Singapore doesn’t bat an eyelid at S$75,000/US$55,000 an hour, rising to S$200,000/ US$146,000 an hour; and the Philippines delivers at between US$40,000 and US$80,000 an hour. Whether or not that’s enough depends on who you talk to. And that’s one thing we don’t think will change in 2023.

BRIAN COX (SUCCESSION) EXPLORES THE EXTREMES OF WEALTH AND POVERTY IN THE US AND UK, SHINING A LIGHT ON INEQUALITY

Women’s issues are quite close to your heart. So you paid a lot of attention to women surviving that and being subject to that you didn’t sugarcoat. It was something important to you, not to sugarcoat.

Yeah. It wasn’t a march to the many women who had domestic violence. And going through domestic violence and I wanted them to identify and see themselves and vindicate themselves as the story goes along, you know, like once you’ve connected to the character of Dr. Jill, you ride along with what goes on in her life. And you want to see her be empowered, you know, go beyond what this scenario is about. Her triumph is the audience’s triumph, her heartaches, her trials that she’s going through are the same troubles that the audience go through, and I actually received some messages talking about how they got affected by that scene in an intense way. Some, even though they are not in a violent domestic situation, are also connected to it because you want to protect another woman from being treated in this way if you can.

How did you deal with it? I don’t disclose too much. I know you’re still way early in this process. But how did you deal with that scene where she first kind of and there’s a director as well that I just I’ll point out you produce this but how do you deal with that first realisation where she’s not actually sure she’s going crazy or not. She kind of knows there’s something weird going on, but it could be her, it could be real, it could be.

As you mentioned, we actually haven’t shot that scene yet.

I think because all the writers and the directors as well, watched the original version of Dr. Foster. So what we envisage would be something quite similar because, you know, we found that that scene is actually quite universal. So that’s what we thought but, unlike the Philippines, we are still in a really early stage of shooting. So we just finished, like, I think five or six shootings up till now. I haven’t actually mentioned the script. Some of the script is still work in process, it hasn’t been actually approved by BBC yet.

Some of it is very much a work in progress so I could share everything that you’re sharing. And if I could take a chance to just step back a bit from Dr. Foster, this is the first U.K. adaptation you’ve made, but you’re not, you’re no stranger to adaptations. But you’ve chosen Japanese before. Tell us a little bit about what you’ve chosen before and why you chose those.

So yeah, we did the Nippon format before. I think twice already. One of them is called Mother. The other one is actually Abandoned.

So both from Nippon TV. Really dramatic as well.

Yes, we made those for the OTT platform in Thailand called Line TV. So why we chose it is because we found that the theme of the story is quite universal. So, similar to why we chose Dr. Foster. Mother is all about motherhood. You know, the key message is that, you know, anyone can be a mother, it doesn’t have to be the one who actually, you know, gives birth to, I think that is something that is easy to understand for the audiences. For Abandoned it’s talking about children who don’t have a mother or father. So it’s also a family drama and the theme is universal and it’s something that hasn’t actually been told in Thailand before compared to other Lakhon so I think those are the main reasons why we chose those.

I think you’re part of the generation that is totally changing the face of Thai drama. Because the whole rom-com light fluffy stuff, this is not in your DNA so far.

Acceleration of our transformation into a content company with successful content launches from our newly formed BEC Studio, new movie production, establishment of artist management, music, and transformation of our OTT platform 3+.”

Surin Krittayaphongphun, President, TV Business, BEC World (Thailand)

Garner Asia’s resources to co-develop for global markets and beat economic slowdowns with reboots, Japa nese manga, and sought-after Asian talent.”

#Onehope 2023

Media execs with Asian businesses share their biggest business hope for 2023.

I’d like to see stream ing platforms widely adopt unscripted entertainment for mats, giving online audiences access to quality content from that genre.”

All talents and professionals from Taiwan are ready to explore possibilities and op portunities with the world. Let Taiwan be your best partner in Asia.”

As we are developing projects in adequation with the Asian markets, our goal for 2023 is to find more co-pro duction partners.”

That India becomes a creative export hub. We hope to create original formats that travel internationally and leave an impact.”

Following this year’s script ed format successes, we are looking forward to discovering new homes for this incredible slate of stories and building part nerships with emerging international streaming services.”

Indonesian premium streaming content gains a better appreciation from audiences locally and the region.”

Women’s issues are quite close to your heart. So you paid a lot of attention to women surviving that and being subject to that you didn’t sugarcoat. It was something important to you, not to sugarcoat.

Yeah. It wasn’t a march to the many women who had domestic violence. And going through domestic violence and I wanted them to identify and see themselves and vindicate themselves as the story goes along, you know, like once you’ve connected to the character of Dr. Jill, you ride along with what goes on in her life. And you want to see her be empowered, you know, go beyond what this scenario is about. Her triumph is the audience’s triumph, her heartaches, her trials that she’s going through are the same troubles that the audience go through, and I actually received some messages talking about how they got affected by that scene in an intense way. Some, even though they are not in a violent domestic situation, are also connected to it because you want to protect another woman from being treated in this way if you can.

How did you deal with it? I don’t disclose too much. I know you’re still way early in this process. But how did you deal with that scene where she first kind of and there’s a director as well that I just I’ll point out you produce this but how do you deal with that first realisation where she’s not actually sure she’s going crazy or not. She kind of knows there’s something weird going on, but it could be her, it could be real, it could be.

As you mentioned, we actually haven’t shot that scene yet.

Yeah. And it could turn out really different so maybe don’t commit to anything. But how are you thinking?

I think because all the writers and the directors as well, watched the original version of Dr. Foster. So what we envisage would be something quite similar because, you know, we found that that scene is actually quite universal. So that’s what we thought but, unlike the Philippines, we are still in a really early stage of shooting. So we just finished, like, I think five or six shootings up till now. I haven’t actually mentioned the script. Some of the script is still work in process, it hasn’t been actually approved by BBC yet.

Some of it is very much a work in progress so I could share everything that you’re sharing. And if I could take a chance to just step back a bit from Dr. Foster, this is the first U.K. adaptation you’ve made, but you’re not, you’re no stranger to adaptations. But you’ve chosen Japanese before. Tell us a little bit about what you’ve chosen before and why you chose those.

So yeah, we did the Nippon format before. I think twice already. One of them is called Mother. The other one is actually Abandoned.

Teddy: [00:29:53]

Yes, we made those for the OTT platform in Thailand called Line TV. So why we chose it is because we found that the theme of the story is quite universal. So, similar to why we chose Dr. Foster. Mother is all about motherhood. You know, the key message is that, you know, anyone can be a mother, it doesn’t have to be the one who actually, you know, gives birth to, I think that is something that is easy to understand for the audiences. For Abandoned it’s talking about children who don’t have a mother or father. So it’s also a family drama and the theme is universal and it’s something that hasn’t actually been told in Thailand before compared to other Lakhon so I think those are the main reasons why we chose those.

I think you’re part of the generation that is totally changing the face of Thai drama. Because the whole rom-com light fluffy stuff, this is not in your DNA so far.

“THE MURDOCHS – EMPIRE OF INFLUENCE IS REAL-LIFE ‘SUCCESSION’ — AND NO LESS DRAMATIC”

More variety of Asian content reflecting the diversity of Asian talents distributed globally, as soft power to promote Asian cultures and tourism industry.”

Sataporn Panichraksapong, CEO of GMM TV (Thailand)

Let’s

variety of thematic chan nels & content will continue to have a deeper positive im pact on platforms’ differentiating offer.”

Alexandre Bac, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Thema

Let 2023 be ‘Work Later Drink Now’ with ‘Our Blooming Youth’. Wish you all the best with happy Korean drama!”

Sebastian Kim, Director for International Content Sales & Acquisition, CJ ENM (Korea)

To inspire and entertain international audiences through the creation of extraordinary stories and the power of collaboration.”

Sirirat Kositanonda, AVP, Head of Rights Management, Mono Streaming (Thailand)

One of my biggest hopes is to create more awareness of MNC’s content thus exploring opportuni ties beyond buying and selling.”

Redo Doron, Head of Sales of MNC Content & Licensing, MNC Digital Entertainment (Indonesia)

Roxanne J. Barcelona, Vice President/Consultant, GMA Network, Worldwide Division (Philippines)

Rohit Jain, Managing Director, South Asia and Networks – Emerging Markets Asia, Lionsgate

Attending more events and meeting more people to look for loopholes and opportunities to produce and create better and more competitive programmes.”

Gunawan Goony, Senior Manager, Acquisition & Distribution, ANTV (Indonesia)

Mayu Sunaga, Director, Global Business Department, Tokyo Broad casting System Television (TBS Japan)

APAC markets.”

Ashok Namboodiri, Chief Business Officer – International Business, Zee

hope our

We hope to forge partnerships that can help localise Indian content for viewers in

Collabo rating with partners to deliver joyful and exciting content worldwide.”

As the global center for youth, my hope for the Asia region is to see it unlock its full local language and scale potential in 2023.”

We hope to see more partnerships and co-produc tion deals hap pening among key players in Asia.”

Young-Ho

Deliver awe-inspiring consumer experiences.”

Ashim Mathur, Senior Regional Direc tor, Japan and Emerging Markets, Dolby Laboratories

To step up production quality and storytell ing of Thai content with elements of soft power that can connect with global audience.”

Apicha Honghirunruang, President, BEC Studio (Thailand)

Find the coexistence of content, commerce and consumer offering across platforms.”

Krissada Trishnananda, Content and Programming Director, Bangkok Media and Broadcasting Company (PPTV Thailand)

Both active and lasting in crease of the demand for Korean content, as it has been for the last 10 years.”

Lee, Head of Global Business, MBC (Korea)

I hope to see more original IP originating out of Asia (par ticularly Singapore) and adapted for the international market.”

TJ Lee, Managing Director, Weiyu Films (Singapore)

To connect with all the distributors and broadcasters in Asia via our e-com merce system to boost Japanese IP.”

Yasuyuki Azuma, Chief of Global Business, Fuji Television Network (Japan)

We hope that the green shoots of post-Covid recov ery continue to bloom in Asia and markets open up to more production activity.”

Ganesh Rajaram, General Manager, EVP Sales Asia, Fremantle

That the analogue free-TV switch off in Indonesia is seen as an opportunity for broadcasters and content creators.”

Yeni Anshar, Programming Director, Net TV (Indonesia)

To grow our business footprint in Asia.”

Yuliya Fischer, Director Drama, ZDF Studios

Reach out, stay in touch and deepen our connections.”

Joe Suteestarpon, CEO, Mediaplex International (Thailand)

hope is that kids’ content will help instill good moral val ues and life lessons so that kids grow up happy and hopeful. Good values and exposure will help influence how kids navigate life as they will learn about their surroundings, issues and how

#Onehopekids 2023

the audience. More than any other content genres, the influential nature of children’s programming brings with

More creative, diverse and innovative stories from great story tellers for the next generation.”

Christopher Ho, Head of Kids – S.E. Asia & Korea, Warner Bros Discovery

That the creative community and content providers stay focused on

it a heavy responsibility – nurturing and shaping the minds of next generations.”

Junaidah Khan, Head of Operations, Qalbox

The

to manage their emotions.”

Khairul Anwar Salleh, CEO, Media Prima TV Networks and Primeworks Studios, Malaysia

We asked people leading content direction for young audiences in Asia about their biggest hope for kids programming in the region in 2023.

Continue partnering with Asian platforms to bring the best in pre school and kids’ content to the APAC region and beyond.”

Jason Soh, Global Sales & Channels Director, APAC, WildBrain

It’s an extremely creative space, and we hope to see more new content/IPs being introduced and breaking into the market.”

Sharmin Parameswaran, VP, VOD/ PPV & International, Astro Malaysia

That more platforms start to under stand the power of having a great kids offering.”

Lauren Marriott, SVP, Content Partner ships & Brand Strategy, Paramount Global Content Distribution

To discover and deliver diverse content that gives children hopes for the future.”

Takako Hayashi, Senior Producer, Content Value Development Center, NHK Japan

I hope to see more locally produced kids content make its mark on the international stage.”

Barry Toa, Assistant Lead, Strategic Partnerships, Mediacorp Singapore

That we might see more content that addresses the cur rent challenges of our com mon society and the planet in a positive, hopeful and clever way, by focusing on stories that highlight all the amazing things people do every day to bring about a better world.”

To establish more long-term partner ships with channels and/or platforms where fami lies can count on returning to the same characters and entertaining stories their kids love, plus the same educa tional standards the parents have grown to trust. These partnerships are win-win for content providers and buyers as they develop loyal audi ences together.”

I hope that all platforms be come acces sible destinations for inspiring programmes that encourage kids to realise their full potential no matter who they are or where they’re from.”

Content creators to develop more kidsfriendly content; en gaging ideas for more educational and enter tainment; and to keep enthusiasm as creators for more fascinating and awesome stories.”

Buyers to be more open to acquiring content from other parts of the world as it will definitely bring more diversity and offer ings to their viewers.”

Seeing less broadcasters and streamers mirror each other’s content selection so closely, and programme more of the unexpected, the weird and the not before seen.”

Kids deserve and should expect quality pro gramming made with exceptional standards, as great content is a vital part of childhood.”

For AVOD services to invest in original IPs so that more unique, story-driven, charac ter-driven, diverse shows are brought to the pre-school and kids audience. In an ideal world, we need the media services providers to participate in the financing of new shows, that will help them differentiate their ser vice in a busy market.”

To work with great broadcast & co-production partners in Asia, and push the creative envelope to build exciting new animated IP together.”

To find more opportunities to partner with local produc ers on interesting and relevant kids’ content that can travel the world.”

Marie-Laure Roche, Head of Inter national Sales, Magic Light Pictures

Corey Caplan, Senior Director of International Sales, Guru Studio

Broad strokes

Singapore’s Mediacorp registered 120% growth in monthly video views on its YouTube drama channel for full-year 2021. Online video views have soared for three years straight, and the national media platform has long moved past its former singular identity as a free-TV broadcaster. In her first broad-ranging interview since she became Mediacorp’s chief content officer, Virginia Lim talks about content and co-production direction,

National media network and Singapore’s largest content creator, Mediacorp, has led an expansion of the country’s broader creative ecosystem, including a new approach to cross-border partnerships and relationships with domestic indies as well as expanding its story-telling range, skills and formats.

A little more than a year after she joined Mediacorp as chief content officer, Virginia Lim speaks about the content direction being set, the advantages and challenges of a broad remit that has to satisfy everything from streaming entertainment and digital content services to niche audiences and mass market public service broadcasting.

Lim emphasises annual growth of 26% in monthly online video views over the past three years, 120% growth in monthly video views on Mediacorp’s YouTube drama channel in 2021, and the advantages of being “present at every relevant touch point of our consumers’ lives… we engage them anytime, anywhere through… Mediacorp-owned and third-party platforms,” she says, adding: “Content is content. You have to be on the right platforms so that your viewers don’t have to go around searching for you.”

Mediacorp is also in high-gear on pursuing next-level content partnerships. “We believe strongly in partnerships,” Lim says; “We want to be working with the best in the industry in telling the most appealing stories”.

You started your career at Mediacorp, spent more than 10 years at Sony, then at streaming platform Viu, and now you’ve come circle, back to Mediacorp. What’s it like coming back to a free-TV environment? “When I first returned a year ago, it felt like coming home, but it also felt very

different. Mediacorp is not what it used to be 25 years ago when I was first there as a producer. Today we are no longer just a free-TV broadcaster. We have evolved into a multi-platform national media network. We are Singapore’s largest content provider. We produce programmes in four national languages – English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil – and operate six free-TV channels and our own video streaming platform, meWatch. We broadcast 1,000 hours of news and entertainment content a week and engage 95% of people in Singapore on a weekly basis across TV, radio and digital platforms, including YouTube.”

“Digital platforms are key drivers of our businesses. Some data: We upload an average of 400 hours of new content a week on meWatch and have recorded annual growth of 26% in monthly video views over the past three years. On top of that, we stream over 2,000 hours of audio programming a week across our 12 radio stations on [digital audio platform] meListen.”

“We aren’t focused on producing for free-to-air linear channels anymore. We are producing shows for non-linear platforms first,

Content is content. You have to be on the right platforms so that your viewers don’t have to go around searching for you.”

Virginia Lim, Chief Content Officer, Mediacorp

and the advantages and challenges of a broad remit that has to satisfy everything from streaming entertainment and digital content services to niche audiences and mass market public service broadcasting.

before they go to linear. We also have several channels on YouTube. Mediacorp’s YouTube drama channel recorded a healthy 120% yearon-year growth in average monthly video views for full year 2021. We are extremely customer centric. We are present at every relevant touchpoint in our consumers’ lives. This is the basis of our transformation success.”

Where does Mediacorp fit in the production ecosystem in Singapore and around the region? “We believe strongly in partnerships. We want to be working with the best in the industry in telling the most appealing stories and producing content that is fresh, intriguing and engaging.”

“We work with a variety of partners, with established production houses, with independent content creators, and we also work with higher learning institutes because we want to keep a constant pipeline of new talent as well as, of course, growing existing talent in the industry, growing the ecosystem.”

“We have, for instance, worked with Wattpad to develop Slow Dancing, which was a success with more than 60% of views from overseas. Our collaborations include The Cutting Edge and After Dark Both shows were written by Singapore Wattpad writers.”

“Most recently, we have a co-production with Screenworks Asia in Taiwan for drama series, Twisted Strings. These allow us to leverage each other’s strengths. We also work with independent content creators, including those from our multi-channel network, Bloomr.SG.”

Is Mediacorp equipped to be an international co-production partner or is the mandate to be a primary producer or commissioner? “We are open to all sorts of co-production. Ultimately, the end goal is content that appeals to viewers, content that can travel. Of course it has to make business sense, but ultimately it’s about the content that we are producing.”

Is there a balance you have to maintain when producing in Singapore in terms of ethnicity and/or language? “As national media network, there will always be a balance that we have to maintain. With digital platforms, we are able to experiment more... everywhere you go to

produce a show will have regulations. So we have to strike a balance between being creative and compliance.”

Singapore has always been diverse and you’ve always catered to a diverse community, but you’re pushing the barriers in different ways. Your World in Mine, about a family with a special needs son, is one of the latest examples. Why is this series special? “This is a story very, very close to my heart and it clearly resonates with a lot of our audience in Singapore. It is a simple drama that shines a light on families with special needs children and their day-to-day challenges. Many of these are challenges that we don’t see or recognise... we may be quick to judge when we see a kid behaving differently, what we think is misbehaving. I’m a mother. I have that too. I’m particular about how kids behave... but sometimes we are not aware that they are special needs kids. The series received rave reviews and response from every platform – linear, digital, social... we are humbled and grateful for the overwhelming response... for a content creator, this is the kind of response we want.”

It looks like an extraordinary amount of work went into Your World in Mine... “We did a lot of research. We worked with organisations that helped us to portray the characters... the story was pitched before my time, so it really was the production team that made it happen. Everyone felt very strongly about the show.”

Is Mediacorp able to participate in projects that have funding from other government agencies? “Production funding, including grants, can be complicated. We are always willing to have that conversation though.”

Mediacorp produces in multiple languages, including English. How has the streaming environment, which has opened up unprecedented opportunities for non-English-language content, impacted what you make? “Language is no longer an issue. In today’s world, content goes beyond language. We are also moving away from producing in a particular language... There are ways we can produce with anyone in any language as long as it’s the right story for us.”

Up cycle

Malaysian free-TV giant Media Prima enters 2023 on its best foot in years. Records are being broken with shows such as Melur Untuk Firdaus, content sales are soaring and alliances with neighbouring broadcasters and producers are expanding. And still, linear is key and mass market audiences remain vital, says Nini Yusof, deputy CEO of Media Prima TV Networks.

Malaysia’s powerful free-TV network, Media Prima, has a lot going for it these days, not least of which is home-grown superhero Ejen Ali; soaring content/IP sales as streamers jostle for local shows; upsized and mon etisable content solutions; co-production successes; hopes for a TVOD business; and the expansion – once again in a long history of ups and downs – of online/streaming platform tonton, which is among Asia’s earliest digital video businesses.

And then there’s Zamri Zakaria’s prime-time drama, Melur Untuk Firdaus, about a young man whose parents give him 48 hours to per suade his girlfriend to marry him. If he fails, he has to marry the girl they have chosen. Clips from the series, which ran on free-TV network TV3 from May to July this year, attracted more than 2.9 billion views on TikTok.

It’s all part of a reversal of fortune for the privately owned media platform, which operates free-TV networks TV3, 8TV, ntv7 and TV9; a vibrant audio business; production house Primeworks Studios; and a publishing business. In 2021, the company posted its first full-year profit since 2018 (2015 if you don’t count a property sale), including trebling content sales over 2021.

It’s also part of adapting to an evolving video and media environ ment. Audiences in Malaysia across TV and online are not judging a show based on whether it’s on TV or online, says Media Prima TV Networks’ deputy chief executive, Nini Yusof. “There’s no discrimination. They don’t go, ‘oh, is it on tonton or is it on TV?’,” she says, adding: “It’s a matter of telling a story and making sure that… there’s incremental viewership.”

Media Prima looks like it has seen the back of a few horrible years. What are your content priorities now? “Providing content targeted to mass-market audiences, millennials and also Gen Z. And creating ad vertising solutions is key for a free-to-air service like ours.”

Although it competes for audience time and attention, TikTok has been a vibrant viewer acquisition platform for you... “We never thought Melur Untuk Firdaus would gain something like 2.9 billion views on TikTok. It was amazing. Normally our dramas range between 200 million and

audi ence and Gen Z-ers came to TV and they started to

800 million views... it’s simply because we

content to share on TikTok. My daughter found out about

when it was trending on TikTok...”

Has Melur Untuk Firdaus’ success changed the way you commission or produce? “Yes and no. For example, for the free-to-air audience, we are targeting the mass market. The content they watch will be quite different from Gen Z. So, for example, we focus on dramas, we also produce documentaries, news is very, very important for us, and we are gaining in sports. When we talk about providing content for our TV audience & also for streamers... we try to meet halfway, to match our requirements with theirs in terms of, for instance, cast and plot. The story will be slightly different, maybe not so edgy… It will still attract a mass audience but with more diversified storytelling.”

Is linear free-TV still as important to you as it used to be? “Free TV gives accessibility. Our job as a free-to-air channel operator is to make good investments to create and produce shows that inspire and enter tain. Every country needs a very strong free-to-air channel and Media Prima’s TV3 is the one in Malaysia.”

Let’s talk about reality show Master in the House, where you blended Korea and Malaysia talent. What led to that? “Master in the House involves team members spending one or two days with a popular per sonality trying to gain knowledge and wisdom. The show is something TV3 has never done before; it’s our first real co-production with Korean broadcaster, SBS. The idea came about as an advertising solution for a Korean client who wanted a Korean series that could be on air for at least eight weeks. We obviously needed a show that would resonate with our audience and allow the sponsor to tell their story. We were very lucky to have two masters – BamBam, the Korea-based Thai rapper/ singer from boy band Got7, and Son Sung Deuk, the choreographer for BTS. We had two episodes featuring Korean masters and the remain

ing six episodes featuring popular stars and personalities from Malaysia, including Siti Nurhaliza, Yusof Haslam, and the director from Ejen Ali, Usamah Zaid.”

Is it a challenge to tie up with talent like BamBam or Son Sung Deuk if your show is sponsor-funded? “No, because we have another group of local talent for the product integration and execution. That’s very, very important.”

Have you done anything similar with other broadcasters in Asia? “We’ve worked with Nippon TV and Fuji TV in Japan in the past. One of the shows was Welcome To The Railworld Japan hosted by Henry Golding.”

How do you prevent your sponsor-funded shows from becoming one long commercial? “You have to pick the right show. Media Prime is freeto-air. The majority of our income is from advertising. If advertisers want to integrate their brands into a story, it has to be integrated well. The product placement has to be natural or the audience will be turned off.”

That’s probably easier to say than to do... “We were lucky because we picked the right product that could be blended naturally into the show. So, for example, we have ginseng, which can be consumed naturally throughout the show. Secondly, we had Samsung as a sponsor. Taking pictures, videos is natural. Number three, we had Lifebuoy sanitiser. This was during Covid. What is more natural than sanitiser? It’s expected. It looks natural. What I wouldn’t be able to do, for example, is accommodate a client with a product that needs to be switched on and off, like an air-conditioner because it wouldn’t fit. Brand integration is all about pre-planning, about really looking at the product, the cast and the setting of the show.”

Let’s talk about online platform, tonton, which has had its ups and downs over the past 10 years or so. What’s the current plan? “Tonton is in a very good place. Thanks to all the streaming platforms, people are more open to paying for content. For the moment, tonton is an AVOD service to support our offerings across Media Prima networks, including TV, digital publishing and also outdoor. As you know, advertisers

There’s no discrimination.

Viewers don’t go, ‘oh, is it on tonton or is it on TV?’.... It’s a matter of telling a story and making sure that there’s incremental viewership.”

Nini Yusof, Deputy CEO, Media Prima

keep saying, ‘okay, TV audiences are getting lower’, which is true. But audiences are watching our content online, they’re watching on tonton, they’re watching our content on our OTT partners. So it’s just a matter of telling a story and making sure that the audience from TV is going to tonton, and there’s incremental viewership.

“During Ramadan Raya, we aired a big movie on tonton. Viewer ship was big, and page views increased. When we aired it on TV, the ratings were still two million. Why? Because there are two sets of audi ences – the ones watching on tonton, the digital natives... they are so used to watching on a tablet or on a mobile phone, and our audi ence on TV, because they appreciate the content. They don’t care that it was released earlier. They’re like, ‘okay, now I’m watching in the comfort of my home, watching on TV and the show is great’. There is no discrimination. They don’t judge by whether it’s on tonton or on TV.

“The business model for tonton is AVOD. We experimented with TVOD with the tonton cinema service [ Ed’s note: tonton cinema closed temporarily in Oct 2022 after 18 months for tech upgrades; no resumption date was available at presstime ]. We might eventually, in 12 months or so, offer TVOD in a bigger way, but right now it’s all about AVOD.” [tonton cinema went live in 2021 with promo rates as low as RM1/US$0.21 with no subscription lock ins. Movies such as CJ ENM’s Parasite , Peninsula and The Battle along with local titles such as Dendam and Sirah Junjungan Tahajud Cinta , were available for 48 hours on up to five devices simultaneously].

In Q1 2022, Media Prima’s content sales revenue more than doubled because of demand from streaming services. In 2021, con tent sales trebled compared to the previous year. Has this massive

pick up by regional and global streamers changed the nature of what you produce and the way you produce it? “Yes and no. The reason regional and global streamers acquire our content is because it works. It provides the eyeballs and the traffic. When we produce dramas, we know what our audience wants. Years of research, years of understanding what works, how certain stars work for a certain plot, where we introduce the newbies... You know, like Melur Untuk Firdaus, the two leads were unknown. Before the drama aired, they had 150,000 IG followers. In 10 days, they had around one million. We know what works, whether it’s 7pm, 9pm or 10pm. For streamers, we need to change in terms of timelines and deadlines. They need time to promote the shows. And we still have to be sensitive to local regulations, so we’re never going to be as edgy as some of the streaming series.”

Will tonton affect Media Prima’s relationship with OTT platforms in terms of content sales? “There’s nothing to worry about. We have enough.”

What’s your relationship with neighbouring markets, such as Indonesia, like? “We did our first direct acquisition from MNC/RCTI – Ikatan Cinta – in 2022. It’s a really a big hit in Indonesia and we thought the story would resonate with our audience. For the past 38 years, we have been airing content from our neighbours, like Mediacorp in Singapore. This relationship with neighbouring broadcasters will continue, whether we buy directly or we buy through a third party. We have always established relationships directly with broadcasters in the region.”

What’s the next step? “I’m really looking forward to doing co-production with our partners in the region.”

The 30-year Itch

India’s Zee Entertainment celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, facing what some say is its biggest challenge yet – merging with Sony Pictures Networks. At the same time, the company is pushing the boundaries on content creation, global co-productions & streaming service Zee5.

Vanita Kohli-Khandekar & Janine Stein capture a birthday moment.

Punit Goenka is walking a tightrope. Zee Entertainment Enterprises, the company he heads, is in the process of merging with Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc’s India subsidiary, Sony Pictures Networks.

By April 2023 when all regulatory clearances are through, Goenka will lead the US$1.8-billion venture – India’s second largest media company after Meta. Currently, Zee has US$999 million in revenue and Sony has US$837 million in India.

How Goenka, a minority shareholder and son of Zee founder, the legendary Subhash Chandra, handles the people-shedding, the culture wars and the decisions he makes on brands to keep or kill, will be among the toughest things he has done.

Zee has just under a fifth of TV viewership in India with 49 local channels. According to Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) data for full-year 2021, the merged company will have a 27% market share, putting it firmly ahead of current leader, Disney-Star.

Unlike Sony, Zee has a strong presence across Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and other Indian languages. It also has a global footprint with 35 channels in 170 countries. It lacks sports and kids programming, which Sony and its 27 channels have, along with a strong urban connect. Both companies have strong film businesses and their own streaming/OTT platforms.

On the back of premium drama series such as Scam 1992 (Applause

Entertainment), Rocket Boys (Roy-Kapur Films) and Maharani (Kangra Talkies), SonyLIV is now India’s second largest SVOD brand after Disney+ Hotstar.

Zee’s global steaming platform, Zee5, is beginning to draw attention thanks to the buzz around shows such as The Broken News, an adaptation of BBC Studios’ scripted drama, Press, about the rivalry between two news organisations, and three seasons of TVF Tripling (TVF), the story of three siblings on a hilarious journey to find themselves and their relations.

These followed the nine-episode Duranga – Two Shades of a Lie (August 2022), the Indian adaptation of 2020 Korean drama, Flower of Evil, directed by Pradeeep Sarkar and Aijaz Khan, and produced by Rose Audio Visuals. The series is about Sammit Patel (played by Gulshan Devaiah) who appears to be the perfect father and husband. When his detective wife, Drashti Dhami, investigates a series of gory murders, the findings threaten to destroy her family.

Zee5, which launched in the U.S. in June 2021 with more than 130,000 hours of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi entertainment in 18 languages, has proved to be remarkably brave about the topics it tackles in the shows it backs, pushing boundaries on, among other issues, women, safe sex and political conflict.

In June last year, Zee5 premiered Pakistani original, Dhoop Ki Deewar,

from Motion Content Group/Hamdan Films. The18-episode series, presented under Zee’s Zindagi Original label, was billed as a story of “heart over hate” set against a backdrop of the Indo-Pakistan conflict.

Director Haseeb Hasan described the show as “a reflection of positivity beyond borders, religion and societal biases… and has an underlying message of peace, harmony and joy of life”.

Dhoop Ki Deewar followed writer, creator and director Asim Abbasi’s Churails (Witches), a thriller about four women in Pakistan who form a detective agency to find cheating husbands and find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy. The series is bold, the women are fierce and fearless, and the whole series entertains as well as raises a fist against toxic masculinity.

In July this year, director Jai Basantu Singh’s comedy feature, Janhit Mein Jaari, added a layer of social commentary about safe sex to the burgeoning slate.

In presenting Zee5’s slate, Archana Anand, Zee5 Global’s chief business officer, has talked about using humour and sensitivity to address taboo subjects, and about stories that “have the power to engage deeply and go well beyond the South Asian audience”.

The latest original, Aanand L. Rai’s Raksha Bandhan, continues rapidfire content rollouts as the platform woos international audiences, particularly in the U.S. Produced by Zee Studios, Cape of Good Films and Colour Yellow Productions, Raksha Bandhan is about an oldest son and only brother of four sisters who promises his mother on her deathbed that he will marry off his sisters before getting married himself.

In the first quarter of 2022, Zee5 released 64 new TV shows and movies (including 13 originals). In May, the company said it would end the year

with 40 original shows plus 40 movies for a total of 80 new titles across Hindi and regional languages and multiple genres.

Zee has also stepped up global content creation via international co-production and development arm, Zee Plus, under veteran Zee exec, Zee Plus chief business officer, Sunita Uchil. The most recent copro, announced during the Mipcom market in Cannes in October this year, is The Lion’s Last Roar, with U.K.-based natural history/science docs producer, Talesmith. The 2x60-mins 4K conservation series releases globally in March 2023. Zee Plus and Talesmith previously partnered on Life of Earth: From Space and Life of Earth: The Age of Humans, an ambitious series for Zee Entertainment and Smithsonian Networks

Zee’s burgeoning global credits also include lifestyle/culinary travelogue, The Spice Trails: Latin America, which has pre-sold to Australia’s SBS Food for the channel’s 2023 schedule. The 12-episode half-hour 4K UHD show – the first co-production between India (Zee) and Mexico (TelevisaUnivision) – features Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina. Other versions covering Asia, the Middle East and Africa are in the works.

There is poetic symmetry to Zee’s latest ambitions. Launched 30 years ago, Zee was one of the progenitors of private broadcasting in India.

Goenka’s father, Subhash Chandra, set up the firm against all odds. Zee’s merger with Sony in many ways reflects the same reality that Fox’s sale to Disney in 2017 did – a way of safeguarding the brand and ensuring its survival in a future that will be dominated by large-scale tech competitors such as Meta, Google, Amazon Prime Video or Netflix.

“As Zee and the industry move towards the next 30 years, we will continue to take pioneering steps to create a robust version of the company, while also redefining the future of the media and entertainment landscape in India,” Goenka said in an emailed comment. The regulatory processes around the merger mean he is not currently free to talk directly to the press.

“Zee’s journey over the years can be defined by its sharp growth, its risk-taking ability to constantly tap into newer avenues and its consistent vision to generate higher value for all stakeholders,” Goenka says.

True that. “Zee was among the first broadcasters to attempt multiple languages,” points out Shailesh Kapoor, CEO, Ormax Media, a Mumbaibased consulting and research firm. Its Marathi-language channels have dominated the genre for decades.

“In general entertainment channels, IP creation is difficult. But Zee has done well with Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and Dance India Dance,” Kapoor adds. Both are original Indian non-fiction formats created in-house. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, a music reality show, has completed 33 seasons while Dance Indian Dance has aired for seven seasons so far.

Zee has also just taken another stab at sports with a strategic licensing agreement with Disney Star in August this year. Disney Star will license the television broadcasting rights of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Men’s and Under 19 global events from 2024 to 2027 to Zee. These are the building blocks for any regular broadcasting company.

Among the many questions that will be answered in 2023 is: Will SonyLIV stay or will Zee5? Will Zee TV remain or Sony flagship general entertainment channel, Sony Entertainment Television (SET)? What about headcount?

Those are the tough questions Goenka will be grappling as Zee navigates its 31st year. That may not be such a party.

In the beginning...

In 1991, like many Indians, serial entrepreneur Subhash Chandra saw CNN, the first satellite channel to broadcast into India. What he saw was not just the Gulf War that CNN was broadcasting, but the potential for satellite TV.

He began a conversation with David Manion, president of the newly launched Star TV to lease a transponder on AsiaSat-1 –the only satellite at the time with a footprint across 38 countries, including India. AsiaSat-1 was owned by a consortium that included Hong Kong-based billionaire, Li Ka Shing. Li’s son Richard had launched Star TV from AsiaSat-1.

The trickle of channels – CNN, Star Plus and others – would become a flood, given how under-penetrated the Indian media market was at the time.

Chandra wanted to get in before anybody else. He and Zee co-founder, Ashok Kurien, worked out a business plan for a 50:50 joint venture and assumed a transponder lease cost of US$1.2 million a year, a figure Star’s Manion had quoted.

In December 1991, they flew to Hong Kong. The meeting with Richard Li was a disaster. Li did not believe there was any money to be made in India and refused to do a joint venture. Li, who has never discussed the Zee deal in any interview, also refused to lease the transponder for less than US$5 million a year – more than four times the previously agreed price. A furious Chandra threw caution to the wind and agreed to pay US$5 million.

Li did not give in. It took him a trip to India and a refusal from every media baron he met – Vineet Jain, Sanjay Dalmia and Nusli Wadia, among others – to realise that only Chandra had the gumption and cussedness to pay that kind of money. Only Chandra believed that satellite broadcasting had a future that would enable him to recover that sum.

In May 1992, Chandra signed a letter of intent with Li. In October the same year, he launched Zee TV.

(Excerpted with permission from “The Making of Star India”, Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, Penguin-Random House)

Soul heir

Lav Diaz returned to this year’s Venice Film Festival with When the Waves Are Gone, a co-production between the Philippines, France, Germany and Denmark. The prolific Filipino filmmaker’s latest work tells the story of Lieutenant Hermes Papauran, an investigator who witnesses the country’s murderous anti-drug campaign and finds himself in an overwhelming moral and physical crisis.

How is When the Waves Are Gone commenting on the social and political situation in the Philippines? “As a young journalist before – my first job was the police beat – you are assigned to a precinct. You do all the dirty work, reporting on robberies and murders. I’ve seen a lot and became friends with investigators. It’s a very dangerous and corrupt system. Most of them have to compromise, which is magnified everywhere when Duterte ordered the killings of drug addicts and abusers. So this film is very real and based on the reality of the first two years under Duterte. I also used a real character, Raffy Lerma, who is a photojournalist and has witnessed these events.”

You use 16mm for this film, which gives it a patina of history and the past, while also referring to very recent issues. Why did you decide to use 16mm film? “I believe in the words of André Bazin that anything that happens in cinema – all the technological advancements – goes back to the nature of cinema. You cannot escape the past. We love the mobility, flexibility and ease of digital filmmaking but you always want to return to the nature of cinema – the celluloid – which is the 16mm film

for me. It gives me more soul, the ancient and primal feeling that I’m doing cinema right. It’s very dangerous because when you shoot with 16mm, it’s cranky and you don’t know if you got the image. We found a laboratory in Romania, had to send the films in a bag and it passed through all these X-rays. We waited for months, hoping there would be an image.”

When the Waves Are Gone seems to comment on the photographic medium and what it means to capture or bear witness to such horrific events. Are you also reflecting on the purpose of filmmaking in general? “Yes, it’s always a big dilemma. How do you deal with the truth? Are you really doing it in a way that the message gets across? Every time I make cinema, I create characters and a narrative. Sometimes you get lost because you are trying to turn a caricature into a very real thing. Are you getting your vision right? It gets complicated because there are so many factors going on when you are doing a film. Maybe the budget is just this and you can only do this, or the actors you want are busy, or there’s a pandemic. These things add up and then a cataclysmic event happens in Ukraine and suddenly, your work gets dated and cinema becomes too late. You talk about cinema as the ‘now’ but at the same time, we are just chronicling the past.”

Given the length of your films throughout your career, some people have referred to When the Waves Are Gone or Genus Pan, as ‘short films’. Why did you feel that two to three hours of runtime were appropriate for these particular stories? “Some works just demand those hours. This film was actually supposed to be nine hours. I took off the prologue and epilogue – it’s for the next film. When I was cutting it, the middle part was so autonomous that it became the whole film. The nine-hour thing is still beautiful.”

“You cannot escape the past,” Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz told Sara Merican in a conversation about When the Waves Are Gone, his three-hour 2022 film about a cop and a man he helped put in prison.

Big Pictures

Bomanbridge Media has delved into a variety of new activities in the content space as part of its ongoing global growth. Distribution activities have reached far beyond our home market in Asia and now involves meaningful sales across Europe, Middle East, Lat Am and North America.

Licensing deals such as Paul Goes to Hollywood to Food Network in the U.S., Bafta award-winning My Childhood My Country to ITV in the U.K., China Through the Seasons to RTL Germany and Earth Emergency to Disney+ Lat Am, are “all great signs that our distinctive content travels well, offering an upside in revenue opportunities for both our rights owners as well as ourselves,” says Bomanbridge Media CEO, Sonia Fleck.

“We are making a concerted effort to further cement our company’s brand as a quality Singapore indie shop with a curated slate of global programming,” she adds.

“In addition to our distribution, we are committed to scaling our pipeline offering by increasing our IP development slate, co-productions and pre-sale capacity. The intention is to supercharge our collaborative production efforts with other talented and experienced partners,” Fleck says. Original IP highlights include the US$2-million factual entertainment series, The Great Wall with Ash Dykes (6x60 mins), co-produced with CICC (China), Zig Zag Productions (U.K.) and Netherlands-based global programmer, Insight TV. The accompanying VR experience is produced by China’s VR giant, Pico.

In addition to distribution, we are committed to scaling our pipeline offering by increasing our IP development slate, co-productions and pre-sale capacity.”

Sonia Fleck, CEO, Bomanbridge Media

“This has been an incredibly difficult production to pull together due to the complexities of Covid and the hard-to-access locations of the Great Wall,” Fleck says.

The epic six-part historical expedition follows Ash Dykes, an accom plished world traveller and adventurer, on an authentic discovery of hidden parts of the Great Wall of China. Production is scheduled to wrap on 20 December 2022 with delivery in Q1 2023.

Fleck says the decision to up the ante with a VR experience was driven “by the realisation of how rare the access was on the Great Wall. Many of our locations have never been captured in this way for a larger global audience”.

“We wanted to share the experiences of kung fu training at the temple, surrounded by Shao Lin Monks at dawn, or better, diving underwater where entire sections of the Wall still stand with statues. It feels other-worldly. We also wanted to share the energy of this show –imagine riding on the mountain bike with Ash as he goes at top speeds down very steep and totally inaccessible areas with breathtaking views. VR was our solution to share this.”

“Pico is the leading innovator in VR, and their R&D has created a pioneering all-in-one VR headset PICO 4, which is poised to become market leader. It’s very exciting considering the magnitude of this pro duction; the VR product, Ash Dykes’ Journey to the Great Wall, will give incredible access to a mind-blowing visual experience in a personal way,” she says.

Another upcoming highlight is Ric Freeing Flipper (1x60 mins), featur ing adventurer, animal activist and unlikely celebrity, Ric O’Barry, who was originally the trainer of the famous dolphin, Flipper, and the person behind Oscar-winning documentary The Cove. The partnership with Bomanbridge is led by Ric’s son Lincoln (Bayrock Entertainment) and Canadian production house, Two Wise Monkeys.

Ric Freeing Flipper is about the rehabilitation and release of dolphins through O’Barry’s Dolphin Project working through the Umah Lumba Re

habilitation, Release and Retirement Center in Banyuwedang Bay, West Bali, Indonesia (Umah Lumba means “dolphins” in Balinese). The centre is the first and only permanent dolphin rehabilitation, release and retire ment facility for former performing dolphins.

Most of the footage is in, including film of “the incredibly emotional release of the first three dolphins into open sea after three years of reha bilitation,” Fleck says, adding: “We are now looking for further pre-sales on this premium docufeature, to finance the post-production work”.

The third new premium project on Bomanbridge’s current agenda is new doc, Reuniting Bonnie & Clyde (1×60 mins), which revisits this notori ous couple. Bomanbridge Media has signed the life rights to Bonnie Parker’s story through a first look deal with veteran factual producer, Phil Fairclough, of Two Wise Monkeys.

The legendary outlaws and lovers were buried in separate graves because Bonnie’s angry mother said: “He had her in life but he won’t have her in death.” Now Bonnie Parker’s niece and Clyde Barrow’s nephew are going to exhume the body of Bonnie and re-bury her next to her sweetheart, so they can be together again. The production will follow Bonnie and Clyde’s closest relatives and the past story through this emotional process of moving her grave to be next to his, reveal ing astounding new details about the intimate lives of the world’s most famous outlaw lovers.

Bomanbridge and Two Wise Monkeys are also in development on a scripted series, Bonnie, about the life of Bonnie Parker, told from Bon nie’s first-person perspective, starting before she met Clyde.

“For the first time, we bring to life the story of the real Bonnie, a driven, very intelligent and sensitive woman, clear on where she was heading with Clyde, even when she knew she wouldn’t likely return. Her story could be understood differently today, with much deeper emotions, desires and a yearning for freedoms which women weren’t necessarily able to appropriately express,” Fleck says. Co-production discussions are underway. “This is,” Fleck says, “one of our passion projects for 2023”.

TCCF 2022

Taiwan’s entertainment industry is heading into the new year with a recordbreaking achievement. Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) drew its largest audience ever! A total of 60,000 visits – more than double the footfall in 2021 – at nearly 100 events.

TCCF’s third edition in Taipei, which ran from November 3 to 13, drove an estimated US$32 million worth of content industry growth. It was a celebration of Taiwan’s creative freedom, along with its increasingly important seat around the international production and programming table.

Technological innovations were at the forefront of the festival. 11 days of public exhibitions sought to inspire crowds with the future of content creation. Technologies – including VR, XR, interactive projections, and NFT – took centre stage.

Performers explored the future of music with a combination of lighting technology, modern dance, contemporary circus performance, film projection, live podcasts, and other performing arts. Taiwanese indie rock band, Sorry Youth, performed on a four-sided stage, for example, offering their audience a myriad of experiential perspectives.

CEO of Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), Izero Lee, believes that Taiwan can play a leading role in the future of content creation. Taiwan’s strength in technology is one of the key reasons why directors or producers from elsewhere around the world should want to partner with Taiwan.

The Innovations Salon expanded on this theme of technology in the future of content creation. Speakers included Doede Holtkamp, director of operations from Brazilian VR production company, Arvore Immersive, who analysed the market and business opportunities of narrative and game VR. In another Salon talk, Director of Digital Content at the CNC (French National Center for Film and Animation), Olivier Fontenay, discussed public funding for new media content with Grace Lee, Director of TAICCA’s Content and Culture Technology Department.

Professional events at TCCF 2022 – the Market, Forum and Pitching –were held over just three days. The Market gathered 133 exhibitors with 812 titles, and over 100 international online and offline buyers. Senior Planner from Screenworks Asia, Echo Ku, said she discovered valuable, cross-domain opportunities in music and gaming, and that she received practical feedback from international and domestic collaborators.

Executive Producer of Chinese Drama Productions at Singapore’s Mediacorp, Loh Woon Woon, was inspired by the like-minded film and television practitioners whom she met at TCCF. She praised Taiwan for creating an environment that nurtures domestic talent.

The forum had an international lineup of 45 speakers. Video content producer at Japan’s Rakuten TV, Kim Kyoung-eun, joined a Spotlight event about BL (Boy’s Love) drama, saying that audiences of Taiwanese BL dramas in Japan have increased 25-fold since 2018. She believes this trend can continue, so long as the production quality remains high.

Taiwan is very accustomed to international cooperation. We have good content, good technology, and good talent. That makes us worthy of cooperation in various fields.”

Izero Lee, CEO, TAICCA

Singapore’s Angie Chai, Star Ritz Inter national Entertainment CEO, also made an appearance at the Forum, speaking about emerging investment opportuni ties in the content Industry. She believes that the biggest emerging investment opportunity is in content for global OTT audi ences, as opposed to regional TV audiences.

Europe’s largest event dedicated to series, Series Mania, sent a delegation to participate in both the Forum and Pitching sessions, following an agreement with TAICCA to help facilitate co-production between Europe and Taiwan. The Series Mania delegation selected a series titled JUDOKA to be presented in the Taiwan Pitching Session at Series Mania 2023. JUDOKA is based on the true story of a washed-up judo athlete from Taiwan who falls in love with a gold-medal judo athlete from North Korea.

“JUDOKA impressed us by the political background,” says Laurence Herszberg, founder and General Director of Series Mania Festival. “This story takes place between a lot of countries, and also between North Korea. All of us in the world know about North Korea. It’s a very intense love story between two strong characters and it’s also about judo,

which is a great arena to show on screen.”

Collaborating directors, Y.C. Tom Lee and Jae Yang, say their project already has co-production backing from South Korea’s Han mac Culture Group, and they’re currently in discussions with an other producer based in Serbia. TAICCA has supported their project from the beginning, and the duo are continuing to search for more co-producers who believe in their story.

Not only does TAICCA help Taiwanese directors to find international co-producers, but on the flip-side, TAICCA also provides support for international producers who want to collaborate with Taiwanese tal ent. Producer and partner at Cinéma Defacto, Sophie Erbs, was among the Series Mania delegation at TCCF. During the Forum, she spoke about the creative freedom she experienced while making a co-production in Taiwan, and the unique mod el of co-funding that TAICCA has put in place.

“I discovered this new programme that I think is unique, and that TAICCA has put in place, that is the TICP, and that is now allowing us to benefit from the talent of the Taiwanese people, not only in the shooting part, but also in the postproduction,” Erbs said. “I think it’s unique in Asia. I don’t think there are many other countries in the world that have, what we call in Europe, a bilateral co-production scheme, that is basically financing and support for me to come with directors, to bring them here, at the benefit of the talent and Taiwanese industry.”

You can learn more about why TAICCA is your best partner in Asia, how to join TCCF 2023, the CCDP (Creative Content Development Program), TICP (Taiwan’s International Co-funding Program) and more at the official website [www.taicca.tw].

Way of the Dragon

Korean production house, Studio Dragon, leads the K-drama boom with the biggest budgets and access to the best talent pool among its advantages. Executive producer/IP strategy general manager, Lee Ki-hyuk, talks about growth and expansion every which way; diversifying platforms, partners and genres; filtering out the noise to focus on the story; and other things at the top of the US$1.5- billion, seven-year-old listed studio’s agenda as 2022 draws to a close.

Studio Dragon productions increased to 13 titles in Q2 this year – +7 from Q2 the previous year. Is there anything in particular that needs to happen for you to maintain this level of growth? “In 2022, Studio Dragon focused on expanding its cooperation with not only linear channels, but with global OTT platforms (Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, etc.), including those of Korea (TVing, Coupang Play). Therefore, we are planning and developing diverse genres suitable for diverse platforms, and strengthening our capability to develop new items.”

What (or who) has the greatest influence on what dramas you produce?

“There are many factors that influence drama production. There may be external environmental factors (such as expansion of OTT platforms

and increasing demand for K-dramas) and internal environmental factors (such as securing creators, domestic competition and rising production costs). Recently, the most influential factor has been the diversification of viewers’ needs, varying across platforms. In order to meet these needs, we are putting effort into our planning and developing stages as well as discovering original IP.”

The studio has said it would like to diversify its genres – what would you say you are best at to date and what kind of diversification might you be exploring? “Studio Dragon presents stories of diverse genres such as romance, action, mystery, human, fantasy, creature, etc. Rather than focusing on the genre we are confident in, we are consistently seeking

new stories that will fascinate the world. We would like to grow as a premium storyteller group, and we believe that every good starting point begins with a good story.”

What impact – if any – will CJ ENM’s focus on TVing have on Studio Dragon’s productions in terms of volume and the type of programming you produce? “TVing is the Korean OTT platform with the most subscribers in Korea. Studio Dragon and TVing continue to cooperate in content pro duction, and this allows us to introduce subject matters and formats, which were difficult to introduce through TV.”

Are you seeing any increase in interest in scripted formats/remakes of Studio Dragon drama IP? “Global interest in IP owned by Studio Dragon is increasing. To provide a recent example, Flower of Evil, which was popular even in Korea, was successfully sold as a remake in India. It is meaningful be cause it is the first K-drama to be remade in India. As various countries are requesting for remakes, we notice the power of Studio Dragon’s originals.”

How do you view co-productions and where are possible partner ships with other production houses (in Korea or elsewhere) on your list of priorities? “Currently, Studio Dragon is co-producing the American TV series The Big Door Prize with Skydance Media in the U.S. We are considering co-productions of other IP as well. Co-production with other countries (such as the U.S., Japan, etc) provide the opportunity to experience foreign production systems (such as the Hollywood produc tion system) and to approach local viewers through works of Studio Dragon.”

Other than Squid Game, what would you say is having the greatest impact on Korean drama perception in the rest of the world? “It would be storytelling. Works like Squid Game have fascinated viewers across the world with their dystopian themes. However, K-dramas, regardless of genre, embrace a storytelling that immerses audiences in each and every episode... our storytelling fascinates viewers all around the world.”

What would you say has been the biggest change in Studio Dragon’s approach to content development and production in the past few years? “It would be the diversification of distribution. Previously, distribu tion was limited to domestic TV channels and overseas local sales, but with the appearance of global OTTs, works could be distributed across the world. Studio Dragon has worked consistently, without differentiat ing between domestic and overseas content, and we have seen that both can appeal to the world.”

Generally, drama production budgets across Asia have increased as a result of streaming, with Korea at the top of the range in Asia, and talent costs soaring. But Hollywood budgets are still way higher. Do you see Korean production budgets continuing to rise to eventually reach those of the U.S.? “The markets of Korea and the U.S. are different in nature, so even if production costs of Korea have risen significantly, they are not expected to reach those of the U.S. Production costs in the Korean drama market are rising due to efforts to scale up and improve quality, rising labour costs, etc.”

Studio Dragon has said it would like to be a global major studio: what does this look like? Will your HQ shift to the U.S.? Will your budgets/ output be level with U.S. studios? Where does your “Korean soul/DNA” fit into this global operation? “We would continue to secure successful IP and deliver diverse genres and hits. We aim to achieve high-growth and production stability by expanding our cooperation with global OTTs and top creators. With the rising popularity of K-dramas around the world, we have been asked this question several times, and we have seen countless times that works enjoyed by Korean viewers are also enjoyed by the rest of the world.”

What is at the top of your wish list for Studio Dragon in 2023? “Our influ ence on the global stage is still inadequate. We wish to expand our influence and advance as a global major studio, by increasing our own successful content cases.”

Rather than focusing on genre.. we are consistently seeking new stories that will fascinate the world. We would like to grow as a premium storyteller group, and we believe that every good starting point begins with a good story.”

Boom bosses

Screenplay Films is already among the Indonesian production houses at the forefront of the streaming boom. What are your priorities now? “Our top priorities are to grow more IP bank. Sources can be in-house IP or third parties. And also definitely more partnerships with IP owners outside and inside Indonesia, and with creatives; how we can adapt their series and films that fasttracks our ability to provide volume. Regenera tion is a key objective for us. With the content boom, especially in OTT, we can experiment a lot. We can find and identify new writers, producers, directors and really guide them to find their voice in this new mode of entertainment.”

In March 2020 you had one steaming commission. This year you will launch 10 or 12 series, including season two of Serigala Terakhir “And then next year, that’s expected to grow to about 14 to 16 series for all the major platforms operating in Indonesia.”

What’s most important to you in choosing stories? “We rely on ana lytics, especially if we have to acquire something. But as our creative team and our CEO always emphasise, we don’t care if no one knows about the story as long as it’s good, cutting edge and something dif ferent. Right now there’s a lot of low hanging fruit in Indonesia be cause we’re in our infancy in terms of ideation.”

How do you approach formats? “Definitely Korean and Japanese. It’s what’s working in the region. We’ve adapted Turkish formats.... [we will consider anything] as long as we feel that it will have an emotional

resonance with Indonesians... the critical consideration for us is that the format rights holder should have a fly-in producer or a showrunner who really knows how to navigate the intricacies of an emerging market. So, for instance, we produced Mendua (Doctor Fos . BBC was great, they knew how to navigate the complexities of our writers, who are still learning. So, when we were developing, we found for instance, that the core of the character is not actually about a scorned woman bent on revenge over a cheating husband, it’s actually about a woman having to accept her fate of being alone, and that took several discussions. Without access to the bible, to the creator, that would have not been possible.”

There’s a big gap between Doctor Foster and your young-adult (YA) series, like Married With Senior... “We purposely orchestrate it that way so that Screenplay doesn’t become homogeneous. Screenplay has been around for 12 years. We did a lot of YA romance initially, but in the last five to six years, we ventured out to other genres, like action thrillers... we knew we needed to go a little bit older as well.”

You’re racing to keep up with demand for premium TV production. What have your biggest challenges been? “Our biggest challenges are what we were facing before the demand – a shortage of man power. It’s just escalated. We are now competing with movie produc tion in Indonesia, and some of the crew we had the luxury of working

with on OTT series are moving back to movie production. We are also still implementing efficiencies in production processes, along with infrastruc ture that’s conducive for filming; in Indonesia we are lucky if we can shoot in two locations a day... for the most part, we don’t have studios.”

One of the things that we’ve spoken about over the years is your mission to attract top filmmakers. How are you thinking about continu ing to develop this kind of creator and production ecosystem? “We knew that with the explosion of content, we needed to have diverse voices and those voices can only come from the filmmakers. We signed a deal about four years ago with [Indonesian director] Timo Tjahjanto’ Frontier Pictures... fast forward to now and we have super sized that with about eight subsidiaries within Screenplay, and a lot of them are filmmaker-led. They have their own operations, their own of fices... Screenplay is the umbrella, we just provide them infrastructure so that these creators just create. That’s their main focus.

“We are constantly on the lookout for co-production and develop ment with entities in Indonesia and outside of Indonesia, much like Joko Anwar’s Pengabdi Setan 2 (Satan Slaves 2).We also have an exclusive tie-up with Wattpad, and Screenplay Infinite Films, which pro duced Timo Tjahjanto’s The Night Comes for Us – the first original ever to come out of Indonesia. Frontier Pictures has also produced com edy/crime/action feature, The Big 4 (releases 15 Dec 2022 on Netflix). We also invest in writers’ rooms, like Katatinut, led by one of Indone sia’s foremost writers, Titien Watimena.

“Even though these filmmakers have partnerships with us, they have the freedom to work with other studios in Indonesia or outside. They have the leverage and the flexibility. Our hope is just that they become emis saries to help the industry as a whole.”

Where does Screenplay Bumilangit fit? “Screenplay Bumilangit is our superhero vertical. It is a partnership between Screenplay Films, Bumilangit and Joko Anwar. Bumilangit is an IP-based company with perhaps the largest comic-book hero IP in Asia; 1,200 to be exact. So, out of this library, we’re creating movies, such as Sri Asih, and series for OTT such as Tira for Disney+ Hotstar.

Indonesia has 290 million people and you’re reaching maybe 10 mil lion with your shows. Is there a plan to increase that? “Our number one movie hit about nine million sales, so that’s 4% of the population. We constantly talk about how to tap into the rest of the country... I think it’s about experimenting a lot and taking big risks, and we can do that now with OTT... we can also put a spin on conventional series to attract view ers in tier-two cities, or the rest of the country. Married with Senior, for instance, was set in Bandung. Normally, everything is shot in Jakarta... but we still have a long way to go [in reaching the other 280 million].”

Budgets for drama series in Asia have increased, led by Korea which is spending anything from US$600,000 to US$2.5 million per episode for premium drama. Are Indonesia budgets where they need to be? “Maybe I would use our movies because a lot of the bigger platforms especially are requesting that we do OTT series of similar quality to our movies. Well, currently, our movies in Indonesia range from US$700,000 to US$1 million. So that equates to about US$6,000 per minute, so 45 minutes per episode that’s US$270,000. We are getting there with some of the platforms.”

What’s the biggest lesson from this major growth spurt? “To be able to know when to slow down and listen to the creators. As a company we have a certain DNA: we are not here for quantity, we are here for quality.”

Sing out loud

Malaysia’s dominant subscription video platform, Astro, has a well-documented transformation plan that stretches from becoming the home of a wide range of 3rd-party streaming apps to commissioning the first local adaptions of U.K. premium drama Liar and French series Call My Agent. Content director, Agnes Rozario, talks about new approaches, changing consumption habits and Astro’s evolving relationships with Malaysia’s production community.

The premiere of what would become an iconic show, Akademi Fantasia, in 2003 was a milestone moment for Astro. When the Malaysian platform returns its local adaptation of Korean format, Masked Singer, for a third season just before Christmas this year, it bookends 20 years of musical reality shows that gave artists like Vince Chong, Mawi and Stacy Anam a new stage, and proved the genre’s pulling power.

The new season goes live as Astro marks major shifts in tech and services along with a changing of the guard as long-time boss Henry Tan steps into a role as content advisor and Astro Awani chairman from the beginning of February 2023 and Euan Smith takes over as group CEO.

Astro’s debut as a full internet service provider in May this year along with upgraded boxes rolled out over the past few years have not changed the platform’s content DNA as much as they have user engagement, says content director, Agnes Rozario. Discoverability and relevance have improved because of the new recommendation engine, and the platform has, thanks to digital tech, unprecedented insights into where and what its viewers are up to. “Audiences spend over 70% of their time on the Astro platform and over 70% of their time watching our local shows, both on demand and linear,” she says.

Astro has also integrated multiple streaming apps onto the platform (15 are promised by early 2023), and has over the past two years upped its local content game across all language groups. This includes spending more on originals such as Alfie Palermo’s One Cent Thief, based on the true story of a Malaysian man who stole millions of ringgit, one cent at a time but was, ultimately, undone by greed and ego.

“It took a while to get there [but we are now] able to focus on differentiated storylines, innovation, production values and really target audiences through different platforms and also different belts, different types of content,” Rozario says.

The effort was not without much soul-searching. “We had to reca-

librate how we thought about production and ideation, both in scripted and nonscripted... we now have a different view of what’s relevant,” Rozario says. For example, until two years ago there was no regular supply of Indian/Tamil drama. There’s also a new local scripted Chinese belt, and telemovies.

The evolving approach has involved closer ties with Malaysia’s production industry. “We’ve always been part of that local production industry but more so now as we start producing in addition to commissioning our local scripted content... the local industry is the backbone for our content pipeline today,” Rozario adds, listing Malaysia’s production royalty, including the late Mamat Khalid on the Kampung Pisang franchise, Skop, Infinitus, Red Communications, Radius One, Nu Ideaktiv...

Astro is also bringing new long-form filmmaking talent into its fold. For example, Take Control, about children taking control over their parents’ lives through a video game, and Grim Film’s show about a body swap. Grim Film is best known for short films and branded content. Early projects include Alpha47, which has become a regular contributor, including producing last year’s Projek: Anchor SPM. One of the latest projects from newbie creators is dark comedy, Murder By Moonlight; the eight-episode

whoddunit about a female detective and 12 suspects trapped on an is land was created/co-directed by Mien Ly in her first TV series. Astro Shaw produced Murder By Moonlight with Iron Hill Media and Passion Pictures.

Astro’s latest environment is “really about flexibility. We had to opti mise business models to encourage producers and showrunners to want to collaborate with us,” Rozario says.

Streaming competition has little, if anything, to do with Astro’s newest content initiatives. Rozario points out that Astro was experimenting in the premium space as early as 2015/6, with Dosa, Sembilan, Sepenggal Puisi, Mandatori and Gantung. At the time, the local market was “prob ably not ready”. Fast forward some seven years and “we’re seeing new engagement” with these titles. “Once you create something that’s good, it adds library value,” she says. Meanwhile, a new class of writers and showrunners has emerged. “It was about us taking stock, of seeing what we needed to work on and where we needed to be,” she says.

Services like streamer sooka, which Astro rolled out in mid-2021, and e-sports brand eGG have pushed Astro in new directions as well. eGG, launched in 2016, has, for instance, created a show called Dongibab, rooted in a community that doesn’t have to think about what that word means (Ed’s note: ‘don’t give up’), which is working well on sooka. There’s also eGG’s gaming-related Mata Kerbau (2018), which is work ing for sooka’s viewers.

Sooka shows, targetting younger audiences, tend to be more edgy than Astro’s premium originals, which are primarily meant for Malaysia’s traditional pay-TV audience. “It’s very much about the target market,” Rozario says. Sooka audiences are less interested in subscription contracts “but might come in very regularly to watch sports or other content”.

Astro’s new partnerships include an adaptation of Wattpad comingof-age story, Shieyruna’s Kau vs Aku, a sooka original directed by Shamyl Othman and produced by Lina Tan’s Red Communications. Kau vs Aku is the first Wattpad story adapted for Astro. A week into its run, digital exten sions had topped 33 million views, Rozario says. “That wasn’t even the ac tual show,” she adds. Viewers were commenting about not having seen anything like this before in Malaysia, “so that is encouraging”, she says.

The same goes for i-Tanggang Mother of All Lies, which deals with men tal health, and Projek: Anchor SPM about academic cheating. “We’ve really focused on innovative concepts... on differentiated stories and

storytelling, and higher production values.

Malaysian murder mystery, Helmi Yusof’s The Maid (2021), also forged new paths for Astro; the original half-hour series by Juita Viden for Astro Ria about a man, his four wives and their maids, was the first Malaysian show acquired by Philippines’ free-TV network, GMA, for its June 2022 schedule.

Rozario says Astro has exported its content for years, primarily to Indo nesia and Singapore. Co-production/co-investments are also part of the mix, including involvements with Angga Dwimas Sasongko’s latest film, Mencuri Raden Saleh; Rally for Love, a co-production with Taiwan’s For mosa TV; and On Your Mark, Chiu Keng Guan’s mainland China directori al debut, which Astro Shaw distributes in Singapore and Malaysia. “We’re very flexible about our business model,” Rozario says. “We’re constantly looking for partners in a way that’s beneficial to all parties,” she says.

While it keeps eyes wide open for new ideas, Astro remains faithful to long-trusted tried-and-true properties, like reality shows, led these days by singing competition Gegar Vaganza, which has audience reach of close to seven million on linear and also drives non-linear Astro Go viewership.

Rozario says these play a key audience engagement role and dominate the still-important linear space. “They are highly local and relevant and, because they are live or slightly delayed, they allow us to be responsive to the sentiments of the day, or to things that are going on around us,” she says. During 2021’s floods, for example, Astro raised flood relief via a collection in each of the competitors names. Live comedy franchises, such as Sepahtu Reunion and Maharaja La wak, are also huge crowd-pleasers.

Home-grown shows will live on alongside format adaptations, re started in 2020 with Masked Singer, which returns on 23 December, and Banijay Rights’ All Together Now, adapted from the U.K. original, which had a reach of 5.4 million when it aired in 2021 and is returning for a second season.

“In order to feed a lot of these reality competitions and the thousands of hours that we produce for our platform, we also need to create other shows to discover new talent. Through our collaboration with Nu Ideaktiv (a JV between Astro & Karangkraf), we successfully discover new talent all the time for our shows... And to think this all started with Akademi Fantasia in 2003.”

True story

True CJ Creations has ambitious creative goals that have brought the market Thai versions of hit Korean dramas, including Voice, Tunnel, Unlucky Ploy and the upcoming Start-Up and Good Doctor. Co-CEO, Ari Arijitsatien, talks about re-imagining Korean stories, building a studio system in Thailand based on Korea’s Studio Dragon model, and what’s next for the Bangkok-based joint venture.

CJ Creations, in a sweet spot, with, as Bad Guys showed, exactly the kinds of premium content it was created to make.

Set up in 2018 to marry the best of Korean IP with the creative spirit of Thailand, the Bangkok-based True CJ Creations, from the start, charted a new path for scripted and non-scripted content in Asia, blending Thai practices and decades of experience in the local market via True with the best of Asia’s story-telling and production skills and values in CJ ENM/Studio Dragon.

“We have a new model,” True CJ Creations’ Bangkok-based co-CEO, Ari Arijitsatien, says. “We decode the format and find our own themes.”

In early October this year, Thai drama series, Bad Guys – a remake of Korea’s 2014 OCN thriller about a team of hard-core criminals pressed into new lives as crime-fighters – charted #1 on Netflix in Thailand as well as on local platform True ID. Director Piyapan “Tom” Choopetch’s 12-episode local version ultimately spent seven weeks on Netflix’s top 10 in Thailand, at its peak ahead of global blockbusters such as Little Women, Dahmer: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and Narco Saints The show’s success comes as global streamers ramp up production in Southeast Asia, putting four-year-old Thailand-Korea joint venture, True

Family, for instance, is more of a focus of the Thai adaptations, she says; “it doesn’t mean that romance will not happen in the Thai version, just that the story is more about the family.”

She’s referring, in this case, to Start-up, based on tvN’s 2020 series starring Bae Suzy as a woman with entrepreneurial dreams at the centre of a love triangle with two men – one her secret first love and a second who pretends to be her first love. The Thai version, currently in production, has two female leads and a different ending from the Korean original. The idea is to use Korea’s winning story-telling elements to tell new stories in a world likely to be familiar with the original via global streaming platforms.

We have a new model... We decode the [Korean] format and find our own themes.”

Ari Arijitsatien, CEO (Co), True CJ Creations

What’s the benefit of a format if everything is changed? “We’re not changing everything, but we twist it in order to make it make more sense [for local audiences] and add new flavour that will entice audiences to watch it again. When we add more in terms of the storyline, it does not mean we are eliminating everything.”

CJ ENM’s catalogue is huge. Are your choices based on the performance of the Korean titles or those that aren’t well known in Thailand? “It’s a mix, but of course we cannot avoid looking at the performance in Korea, either from Nielsen or CPI (Content Power Index). Those are the key indicators. We also listen to customers, to reviews...,” she says, adding that the advantages of adapting a series that is not well-known means less scrutiny and pressure in the remake. Studio Dragon has something like 80 in-house producers. How are you replicating that model in Thailand? “We have 10 in-house producers who work in the same way as Studio Dragon. We focus on managing the story, from scripting to pre-production and postproduction. In Thailand, generally, producers do not monitor the production from the beginning to the end in this way.”

True CJ has now had about four years of experience. What genres have worked best for you? “In the past, people might have thought we were famous for suspense, thriller, crime, like Voice, which was so successful, and Tunnel as well. But that changed after romcom Unlucky Ploy.”

Are you free to choose anything you like from CJ ENM? “We have to talk with the writers because we are changing the original. So the writers have to be convinced as well. That’s why we do a lot of analysis before we start to change or adapt.”

One of your latest shows is the music-themed Sing Again, adapted from the 2015 M-net drama series. Why did you choose this one?

“Our research showed it trending among Gen-Z audiences, which are always crazy for content on music, following their dreams and romance, love triangles...”

What about Bad Guy? What made you choose it? “Bad Guy is a male-led crime series. Voice and Tunnel are suspense crime series, so we thought this genre would work. Also Bad Guy has multiple seasons, and a move spin-off, so it’s possible to leverage that.”

How often do you go outside of CJ ENM’s catalogue? “We are not limiting ourselves to CJ ENM. For example, our 2024 lineup includes Good Doctor from Korea’s KBS Media.” The 2013 Korean original medical drama about a doctor (played by Joo Won) on the spectrum with extraordinary memory and spatial skills has been remade in multiple international markets, including the U.S. Japan, India and Turkey.

What about unscripted? “We’ve done a lot, such as Show Me The Money, You’re My Fantasy, Grandpa Over Flowers ... Their budgets are high... we are figuring out if we can make those feasible during these times.”

With so many local production houses, what do you think True CJ’s competitive advantage is? “We are famous for remakes... we have internal consultation from CJ ENM, with Studio Dragon’s writers or producers, and keep training to improve the skills we need. We are also exploring co-production with Studio Dragon.” Is there a roadmap for moving from scripted formats to producing your own series? “We are planning to launch in 2023, if we can find the right partner. Right now we are meeting a lot of local and regional IP owners in order to select and develop together, based on what we are practising with the remakes... Hopefully we can make that part of the plan for next year.”

Story beats

Thai executive producer, Maker-Y’s Yossinee Na Nakorn, has given the market reinterpretations of well-loved romances like The Frenemy and My Secret Bride. Between those and 2023’s To the Moon and Back, she has honed her taste for character-driven stories, more complex motivations and universal themes.

Yossinee Na Nakorn – second-generation Thai filmmaker and executive producer of blockbuster Thai drama series, including The Frenemy and My Secret Bride – talks about following in her mother’s footsteps, craft ing her own style, her latest drama series, Matalada (To the Moon and Back), and bringing to life stories that are flying the flag for Thai content around the world.

Your mother made the original The Frenemy, about two women and a man they are both involved with. You remade the series about four years ago. What did The Frenemy mean to you as a filmmaker and what was it like following in your mother’s filmmaking footsteps? “The first ver sion of The Frenemy was made many years ago by my mom and then I remade it four years ago. A lot changed in between. The Frenemy was adapted from a novel. My mom respected the novel, and

didn’t have many adaptations. Her ver sion is more situation driven, didn’t really dig deep into the characters. We know who they are, what they’re doing, and how they’re doing it; it’s mostly about winning over a guy.

When I produced The Frenemy, the whole industry had changed, the market, the audience, everything was different. What was most chal lenging for me was how to tell the story of a guy whose wife and mis tress are friends. The novel was told through the diary of the ‘good girl’. I didn’t see The Frenemy as the story of two girls winning over one guy. I saw The Frenemy as the story of two girls with a friendship that is so tight. I wanted to tell the story from the diary of the ‘bad girl’ as well.

As a content creator today, I cannot just go with the situation and not let the characters tell their stories because it won’t connect with the audience.

The Frenemy was one of the first times that I worked really really hard character-wise to make sure I knew what was in the mind of each char acter, what their motivations were, and what they wanted me to tell. Towards the end of the story, we see the reason why she’s doing what she does, and the audience connects right away. They really loved it. To tell stories today through drama, you need to lean toward charac ter-driven stories. That’s what The Frenemy taught me.”

If you made The Frenemy today, is there anything you would have done differently? “I think I would not have the main character go back to her husband after he cheated on her.”

Your next series was My Secret Bride (2019), another remake of one of your mother’s shows about a girl in a slum community who becomes a spy for her employer, an undercover police officer. How did you approach this one? “My Secret Bride was first made by my mom when I was in school. It was remade a second time by another company when I was in college, and mine was the third. We reinterpreted the whole story. I went back to the novel and what caught me the most were the strong characters – and not just the leads, but all of them. There was room to explore. This was also the first time we didn’t follow the novel’s story framework We dug deep into the why of each character and what they all wanted, not just the lead characters... What’s so much fun

about this story that I dig deep into the group of the antago nist, not just the lead charac ters... ... usu ally we only know that the bad guys in Thai drama series are greedy or they are jealous. But we never dig deep into why they’re doing anything. The last episode, when the four bad guys go into court and disclose why they have done this, went viral... it speaks so well to the audience today. Because we acknowl edge the common problem that the audience has, and that’s the common problem with the character... that’s the way I need to be as a storyteller today.”

What’s so appealing about remaking your mothers’ work? “I didn’t really look at my mom’s work as my mom’s. I looked at the story and as a producer she picked good stories, good projects, especially these two. They appealed to me as a storyteller. My mom actually suggested My Secret Bride... Those are the only two [of more than 10 that I have made] that I remade from my mom.”

Fast forward to your latest series, romantic drama To the Moon and Back (Matalada), which releases in 2023... “To the Moon and Back is about a girl (Matalada, played by Jarinporn Joonkiat) born into a LG BTQ family and raised against a backdrop of drag shows. To the world, her family may be considered incomplete, imperfect. The lead actor

is born into a perfect family with a seemingly perfect life. But she’s the one who heals everyone... It’s not about win ning over love. It’s not about the big big problems. It’s about a girl who will come into your life and suggest how you could live a happier life.”

Why did you choose it? “To the Moon and Back is my most challeng ing project yet. I divide my work into two eras – the first eight years and the last eight years. The first eight years were like analogue, solid, really safe and sound before all this disruption. And then the last eight years it was like I jumped off the mountain and just started climbing back.”

“The problem we address in To the Moon and Back is authentic, true to human needs. There are no guns pointing in your face, there are no explosions, no deals anyone needs to close... in film school, we are always taught to pick situations that are big enough for people to care about. To the Moon and Back deals with the biggest problem to today’s audience: answering a question we keep asking ourselves, ‘why am I not happy?’ This question today is very important... it’s really challenging for me to put this question into dialogue and action.”

What kinds of stories inspire you? “I always lean towards the story with strong characters. I love problems that are human, the character that has room for me to dig deep into the reasons they are behaving in certain ways. By telling their stories, it might speak to my audience and it might give something out that is good for them, healing them....”

When you think about a drama, do you think about the Thai market or do you think about the regional/international footprint? “Today, I think about a good story for Thai audiences that can be translated for an international audience as well. That’s why I focus more on people, on characters... We all love, we get heartbroken. There are things we all have in common. I feel I have more responsibilities as a Thai content provider to provide content that translates well for the international market and represents the Thai market too.”

I divide my work into two eras – the first 8 years and the last 8 years. The first 8 were like analogue – solid, really safe and sound, before all this disruption. And then the last 8 years, it was like I jumped off the mountain and I just started climbing back.”

Yossinee Na Nakorn, Executive Producer, Mayker-Y Thailand

Doctor in the house

The World of the Married, Korea’s blockbuster 2020 remake of BBC Studios’ scripted drama Doctor Foster, has been followed by award-winning versions in India (Out of Love, 2019, 2021) and the Philippines (The Broken Marriage Vow, 2022) by ABS-CBN Entertainment/Dreamscape and, most recently, in Indonesia as Mendua by Screenplay Films and in Thailand (Game Rak Torrayod/The Betrayal) by production house Juvenile for broadcast network BEC World/Channel 3’s June 2023 schedule.

The interpretations of the original 10-episode one-hour U.K. premium drama about a woman who discovers her husband is having an affair could not – of course – be more different. Dig a bit, and it turns out that the 18-episode Korean series played as much, or more, of a role in shaping some of what came next in Asia as did the 2015 U.K. original.

In Thailand, Juvenile executive producer, Thiti “Teddy” Sutthikulphanich, found his way to Dr Foster via Korean broadcaster JTBC’s 16-episode 2020 blockbuster, The World of the Married, which soared from a nationwide audience share of 6.260% for its first episode in March 2020 to 28.371% for its finale seven weeks later. In between, with a broad streaming footprint that kicked off on regional platform Viu, it was all anyone with Korean drama on their radar could talk about.

The path for The Broken Marriage Vow director Concepcion “Connie” Macatuno, was via her mentor, who brought her the project. Her primary guide was the original BBC version, although she watched “a little” of the Korean series. “I stopped watching because I didn’t want to muddle the story... I wanted to stay faithful to the U.K. original. That became our bible and the basis of our translation into the Filipino setting,” she says, going on

to describe a journey that took the team deep into detail, from bleeding hearts and pines to durian and roast suckling pig.

In both Thailand and the Philippines, the scripted format shows up in different lengths to either the U.K or the Korean versions.

In Korea, episodes are around 90 minutes. The Philippines’ version ran as a half-hour drama stripped on weekdays for 107 episodes/two seasons; “It’s a habit... how we like to watch our soaps, an everyday thing,” Macatuno says. Currently in production, the Thai version is 16 episodes of about 70 minutes each.

The family unit is also elastic. In Thailand, the original mother-fatherson family was reframed to include a second child, which made sense in a social context. “Wealthy Thai families like to have two children – a boy and a girl,” Sutthikulphanich says. Adding a child allowed writers to explore the impact of parents’ relationship on children of different ages/genders. The daughter in the Thai series is 10. “What is interesting about a 10-year-old girl is that she’s not yet a teenager but she’s also not a child,” he adds.

The Thai version changes Dr Foster from a medical doctor to a psychiatrist. Speaking in the early days of production, Sutthikulphanich says the team felt that changing the lead role to a psychiatrist levered up the jeopardy. “From our research, we found that psychiatrists have an image

as people who are really smart and good at fixing other people’s problems. We thought it would be very interesting to see how she goes about fixing her own problems. How she deals with the morals and the ethics of her situation... Can she cross lines personally that she cannot cross as a psychiatrist?”.

The Betrayal also includes more background to the characters than the U.K. version, “so viewers understand why they make certain decisions. “We did a lot of research to make sure everything Thai audiences see makes sense to them,” he adds.

To symbolise the loneliness and isolation of the main character, the Thai production team chose Phuket as a backdrop. “It’s a close community. She’s always an outsider,” Sutthikulphanich says.

For The Broken Marriage Vow, ABS-CBN and Macatuno chose Baguio/Benguet in the Cordillera Central mountain range in northern Luzon as a backdrop. “The doctor was uprooted from where she grew up, taken out of her comfort zone,” she says. There’s a second reason. “In the Philippines, everyone has been to Baguio. We wanted to present a different scenario so that they would want to revisit, to explore the area.”

Elements of Baguio were infused elsewhere. The doctor’s office, for instance. Macatuno describes the office as “quaint, with a vintage vibe, but there’s a lot of fresh greens because Baguio is a city of pine. So there’s a lot of pine trees in the background and a lot of succulents that grow organically in the place”.

Macatuno was as deliberate about including other details that would contribute to showcasing the Philippines to a larger audience. “The dream for me as a storyteller is to showcase the Philippines, to push forward our Filipino identity in a global context,” she says.

Local designers were tapped to create the wardrobe and much thought went into the food that appears on screen. “For me, the clothing, the accessories, the fashion... are another layer of our culture,” Macatuno says, speaking about design communities that work in traditional embroidery, beads, hand looms, weaving... “That’s what we wanted to showcase... how do we, as Filipinos, introduce ourselves in an Asian scenario, or in a global context.”

The show’s success has had a positive impact on local crafts communities. “There’s a feeling that they’re being appreciated and noticed... they never imagined this kind of look could be created and it encourages them to continue their traditions... all the skills handed down through the generations,” she says.

The dishes in the series are distinctly Filipino. The Philippines “is big on roasting”, Macatuno explains. Cue lechon (roasted suckling pig), which, along with durian, stars in the high-drama dinner scene where Dr Jill discloses her husband’s infidelity to Lexy’s family.

Dr Jill’s gift to Lexy’s family is a durian, “which is really stinky and a symbol

for the stinky relationship”. But she can’t have it smell in the car because David would get the reference, so she wraps it up carefully to keep her intentions a secret. “Durian is a well-considered gift in the Philippines,” Macatuno says. “Dr Jill wants to tell Lexy’s parents that their daughter is sexually active with her husband and it stinks, just like a durian”. That’s not all. “Eating durian the traditional way is to put the entire seed in your mouth, and let it stay there. So that in itself, the way that you eat it, with a context of something sensual, is what I wanted to represent”.

The other loaded dish is the roast suckling pig, which is traditionally “cut” with a plate. “That suckling pig is Lexy and he smashes it with a plate, which is just really visceral,” Macatuno says. “The daughter is pert, young, delicious, unlike Dr Jill... the bones that are being broken in that suckling pig is a metaphor for Lexy being broken in front of her beloved people, her family.”

Two others scenes are handled differently across the adaptations. The first is when Dr Jill finds the hair on her husband’s scarf, kicking off the drama, and the second is when he attacks her in front of their son.

Macatuno says the scarf chosen for The Broken Marriage Vow was embroidered with a Bleeding Heart plant pattern. “The scarf is a turning point... the bleeding heart is called Cadena de Amor in the Philippines. I wanted to bring it there because their kind of love is something that makes you bleed, it’s intense,” she says.

The second scene is “very intense”, for actors as well as everyone on set. “It actually stayed with them for two days because of how we mounted it... I wanted to show how ugly it is to be violated by the person you trust and love. It wasn’t a glamorous scene. I wanted it to be in your face, where it starts out that she has the upper hand and she’s provoking him and then in the middle it becomes him having the upper hand and he strangles her, throws her, and then realises what he has done,” she says.

The dream for me as a storyteller is to showcase the Philippines and push forward our Filipino identity in a global context.”

Connie Macatuno, The Broken Marriage Vow

The third element of the scene is that the son witnesses the violence. “I saw that he [Gio, played by Zaijian Jaranilla] wanted to hit his dad. I saw his look... I asked him, ‘do you want to do something to your dad?’ and he goes ‘no’. He was denying it, but of course I saw the body language, and said, ‘if you want to do something to him for this take, let me see how you would do it’. I didn’t want to give him ideas on how because I wanted it to be natural... this is always our agreement, do it when you are compelled by your character to do it, otherwise don’t... He was crying and he approached his dad and he pummeled him saying, ‘What did you do? What did you do?’.

“For me, it’s heartbreaking for a mother to see her son, who loves and adores his father, turn away from him, which is exactly what the scene is about, a turning point in the family. It really is heartbreaking,” she says.

Macatuno did not sugar-coat the domestic violence. “Once you’ve connected to the character, you ride along with what goes on in her life. And you want to see her empowered... Her triumph is the audience’s triumph, her heartaches, her trials that she’s going through are the same troubles that the audience goes through”.

With The Betrayal’s premiere still months away, Sutthikulphanich steers clear of spoilers. But he’s no stranger to producing intense, emotional entertainment. His credits include Thai adaptations of Nippon TV’s Mother and Abandoned, both for Line TV. “Mother is all about motherhood. The key message is that a mother doesn’t have to be the person who gives birth to you. That is something easy for audiences to understand. Abandoned is about children who don’t have a mother or father. So it’s also a family drama and the theme is universal. These stories haven’t been told in Thailand before.” Which is, at the end of the day, the whole point.

Children’s rights

“No not really, kids content is still in high demand and streamers are increasingly seeing the value of a robust kids offering, so the market has been buoyant.”

SVP, Content Partnerships & Brand Strat egy, Paramount Global Content Distribution

“Yes and no. On the one hand, linear opportunities can sometimes be limited, with many channels suffering from budget cuts and an ever-changing media-land scape to compete with, but on the other AVOD exploita tion at a local and global basis, both via local partner’s plat forms as well as our own YouTube channels, has seen the balance maintained this year. Many streaming services seem to be re-evaluating their kids and family content strategy, with so many players in the market, and so this could result in financing some new IP in particular a little more challenging. From our experience, financing and monetising known-brands continues to be a success.”

“It’s no more difficult than it has been in past years. If anything, there are more platforms and opportunities to distribute a streaming channel. The challenge for monetising kids content continues to be in the ad sup ported space. Nonetheless, there are concerted efforts in the industry to grow and increase access to specifically kid- and family-appropriate advertising that I see as a positive sign for the future.”

Luca Fiore, Director of Content, Macademia

“No, in general the opposite has been true –streaming kids content increased during the pandemic and has continued to rise throughout 2022 so we’ve seen increased streaming revenue as well as traditional licensing deals.”

Joe Barrett, Vice President of Sales, PBS International

“In terms of YouTube/AVOD, it doesn’t look like it will be more difficult this year than the previous one. If anything, the multi non-exclusive window opportunities are increasing with the launch of more AVOD platforms and FAST channels.”

Sophie ‘Kido’ Prigent, Global Head of Sales, Jetpack Distribution

Did monetising kids content in Asia become more difficult this year?

Kids rights holders and distributors talk about monetising content in Asia, the changes they’re seeing in buying patterns in the region &, among other top of mind issues as the year draws to a close, their favourite strategies for putting their shows in the right places at the right times.

“I would say monetising content can be easier now with so many streaming original opportunities, but retaining distribution rights, at least in the first window, has become more challenging.”

Kerry Novick, VP Global Distribution, The Jim Henson Company

“I think it is always difficult to monetise kids content as there are more protections in place. Many advertisers are not al lowed to advertise, so therefore it is difficult – be it now or in the future. I think to purely focus on monetising on TV is not the way to go.”

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Joe Barrett

“In some respects, it will become easier as the market sees more plat forms emerging (AVOD, FAST channels, etc.) providing consumers with more choice; like short-form content. However, a steady pipeline of good content will always remain critical as viewers and buyers alike return to us for additional episodes and new programmes.”

Joe Barrett, Vice President of Sales, PBS Distribution

“Absolutely, particularly in what concerns more traditional lin ear channels; there seems to be a slightly increased appetite, which we hope will continue on its upward trend next year.”

Miguel

Mestre,

“I think whether is becomes easier or harder, we have to remain flex ible and nimble about how we monetise content and remain open to new opportunities. We have to put shows where children are watch ing them and help them interact with shows as they want to interact with them. That’s how you build a successful franchise.”

“I do in the ad-supported space for the reasons noted in the previous question. For subscription services and pay TV, it will really depend on the consumer trends for each region/market and what kind of services consumers are gravitating towards.”

Luca Fiore, Director of Content, Macademia

Lauren

SVP, Content Partnerships & Brand Strategy, Paramount Global Content Distribution

“I think it will, as I see a trend of moving towards short-form, which is less expensive to produce, but is what kids want to watch. I believe the ad vent of FAST will also propel monetisation in ways we still can’t conceive.”

Kerry Novick, VP Global Distribution, The Jim Henson Company

“Hopefully, as AVOD services promote themselves to keep up in an ever-more crowded market. And refine their interfaces and discov erability tools to retain viewers.”

Sophie ‘Kido’ Prigent, Global Head of Sales, Jetpack Distribution

“It has never been a breeze .. and it’s not going to get any easier, espe cially with many digital players wanting a revenue-share model.”

Samantha Wong, Head of Global Division, Zoland Distribution

Samantha Wong, Head of Global Division, Zoland Distribution

Do you think monetisation will become easier in 2023?

(Left): Go Green with the Grimwades, Macademia; (Below): Betsy The Bear Car, Zoland Distribution

“Somewhat significant changes now compared to how they were ac quiring in 2021. There’s more appetite to study content in detail before deciding on a licence or not, and there has certainly been more busi ness achieved overall than last year, both in terms of linear and OTT.”

Miguel Mestre, Senior Sales Manager, Aardman

“I wouldn’t say significant changes, buyers are still looking for known IP and our Nick franchises are still in demand.” Lauren Marriott, SVP, Content Partnerships & Brand Strategy, Paramount Global Content Distribution

“I am noting more opportunities for kids buyers to acquire content out of Asia.” Luca Fiore, Director of Content, Macademia

“As with every region, buyers are looking for increased rights to cover multiple platforms.” Joe Barrett, Vice President of Sales, PBS International

“China: there have been some changes since new quota regula tion started with more players and distributors getting involved at the development stage and co-producing. No major significant change other than the fact that Covid has kept us apart for too long, affecting communication with Asian partners.” Sophie ‘Kido’ Prigent, Global Head of Sales, Jetpack Distribution

“Yes, there has been a positive increase in the amount of quality local productions for the kids audience, which means buyers rely less on pro gramming from overseas producers. This simply means that if a buyer in Asia is buying programming produced outside of Asia, they are doing so because the series holds all the educational and social development notes they are looking for, in particular for pre-schoolers, and that the stories are delightful, fun and engaging. It has set the bar very high.” Kerry Novick, VP Global Distribution, The Jim Henson Company

“Most are not too keen on considering pre-school content; it seems like there is an oversupply.” Samantha Wong, Head of Global Division, Zoland Distribution

“We face similar challenges as a sales organisation that programmers do in terms of our programmes existing in a sea of other programmes. Having the added advantage of the Nick elodeon brand name is incredibly helpful since it is synonymous with both quality and parental safety. I think on that basis alone, and the fact that the kid’s programmes we dis tribute encompass enduring franchises... certainly doesn’t hurt.” Lauren Marriott, SVP, Content Partnerships & Brand Strategy, Paramount Global Content Distribution

“There are many angles to answering this question, but it mostly de pends on whether we’re talking about platforms that host our stream ing channel vs our own products, like our mobile and TV apps. With our own products (which we manage in-house), we have more control and flexibility to both implement different editorial and scheduling decisions, but also to develop features that will surface content. For example, we recently released a feature on our Da Vinci Kids app that allows users to earn learning badges by watching or playing certain educational content. On third-party platforms, discoverability can be more chal lenging beyond whatever editorial or scheduling powers are allowed by the platform or service infrastructure itself. Nonetheless, we find that one of the key ways of surfacing content with platforms is by remain ing editorially active with new content, highlights and campaigns that entice the platform to want to work with you.” Luca Fiore, Director of Content, Macademia

“We trust our streaming partners’ promotional strategy and always try and provide them with as much promotional content as possible. Build ing marketing assets for social media and on-screen is and always has been a priority for Aardman, and is something we strategise and imple ment from the commencement of any production. For exploitation on our YouTube channels, our YouTube team follows a tailored release strategy for each IP and channel, in addition to cross-promoting be tween our different channels, our social media channels, our website, etc, all aiming at higher exposure and discoverability of our IP and that which we manage for third-party producers.” Miguel Mestre,

“Our kids content is character driven and deeply rooted in the edu cational standards of PBS. Discoverability is based on both character recognition and the brand equity of PBS. The brand equity flows from a strong broadcast and digital footprint creating millions of weekly im pressions. Continuing to emphasise both in our metadata is key.”

Joe Barrett, Vice President of Sales, PBS International

Are you seeing any significant changes in the way kids program ming buyers are acquiring in Asia?

Do you have a preferred strategy for discoverability or surfacing content?

“On a streaming platforms, we can’t speak for the streamers’ decisions, strategy and tools to surface content, other than the recommendations based on users’ preferences and browsing history, they do promote on their platform and on social networks. From our side, the strategy to motivate kids to search for the content is through exposure on other screens such as linear TV, YouTube, AVOD in general and social networks. Once kids are acquainted with the content, they’ll look for it.” Sophie ‘Kido’ Prigent, Global Head of Sales, Jetpack Distribution

“We work with global platforms and U.S. broadcasters... to create strategies that launch our kids shows. Additionally, we leverage the awareness of our own brand by engaging with our fans and parent communities across social media and seeking out unique PR opportunities that showcase our characters and our creators.” Kerry Novick, VP Global Distribution, The Jim Henson Company

“This will constantly be an issue as kids’ attention is difficult to attract and to maintain. One of the ways to stand out is to launch merchandising or enter into joint promotion... Of course, online promotion is good, such as creating short clips on social platforms to get awareness up. This itself can also be an issue as there is no platform for the very young, so again it will be good to study all platforms before spending money to go to the platforms.” Samantha Wong, Head of Global Division, Zoland Distribution

“Improved voice recognition so pre-schoolers can speak the name of their favourite characters to see related video suggestions.” Joe Barrett, Vice President of Sales, PBS International

“For kids content having an intuitive platform is essential. Also, as I’m sure most parents agree, the power of the thumbnail image is huge, and having these on an episodic basis really lets children drive their own viewing and make their own choices. SVOD platforms could do more with algorithms to serve up comparable new titles and improve discoverability.” Lauren Marriott, SVP, Content Partnerships & Brand Strategy, Paramount Global Content Distribution

“It’s a diffi cult one, as we know many platforms rely on algorithms, and it’s hard to say how this could ever change for streaming services. The more some channels curate, the better the chance of having more discoverable content, but I believe the key is always to provide any partner with as much supporting content as we can, in order to signpost audience to the platforms, and to enhance the brand experience overall.” Miguel Mestre, Senior Sales Manager, Aardman

Is there anything you wish platforms would do to improve discoverability?

Playing catch-up

Turns out an awkward young lawyer with Asperger’s syndrome has way more stay ing power among audiences around the world than zombies running amok in a high school. But, depending on how you look at it, it may be the zombies that won in wilder swings in the number of hours viewed over a shorter period.

In 20 weeks on Netflix’s top 10 global non-English-language TV charts, Extraordinary Attorney Woo has been viewed by a total of 657 million hours. All of Us Are Dead, with just under 660 million hours in half the time, is still ahead. But absolutely nothing indicates that anything Netflix has put up from the finest of Korean creators comes anywhere near Squid Game’s win of almost 2.3 billion hours viewed in its 20 weeks on the top 10. Meanwhile, global audiences’ appetite for non-English-language pro gramming varies wildly. Even taking Squid Game and All of Us Are Dead out of the mix with their gigantic viewing hours in their first few weeks, the graph for the number of hours the #1 show on the non-English list has attracted a week since January this year is a roller-coaster: Spanish drama Wrong Side of the Tracks made #1 for the week of 6-12 June with 19.4 million hours. Also on the lower end, Extraordinary Attorney Woo topped the 4-10 July list with just under 24 million hours viewed. Somewhere between those lows and the middle, Colombian telenovela Café con aroma de mujer hit 99 million hours (10-16 January); 59.4 million hours (3-9 October) did it for Austrian historical drama, The Em press; and 62.7 million hours put Korean drama Narco Saints in pole position for 12-18 September. Possible reasons vary from Covid to competition to Bridgerton, Stranger Things and Jeffrey Dahmer, all of which have topped the English-language list and drew audiences from everywhere. Closing out 2022, it’s pretty safe to say there is zero able to match Squid Game for the year and only the hope that other Asian origi nals will, eventually, make it to the list.

The first MIP

of

Ayan’s Astraverse

Indian cinema has always struggled with two things –creating a franchise and using Indian mythology to create big cinema. Brahmastra is a giant step forward on both fronts.

Indian director Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra: Part One – Shiva grossed about US$53 million at the global box-office, making the story of Shiva’s fight against evil forces the biggest Hindi hit of 2022. Starring Ranbir Ka poor as Shiva, the film centres around control of the ultimate weapon –the Brahmastra (a blend of the Hindi word astra, which means weapon, and Brahma, the creator in Hindu mythology).

The story is the first of a trilogy that has taken Mukerji, now 39, almost 10 years to create. The “Astraverse”, as he calls it, is an alternate uni verse where the good guys are armed with natural forces like water, fire, wind or creatures such as monkeys or bulls thanks to some stunning visual effects from Indian VFX specialists, Prime Focus.

Mukerji says he started thinking about Brahmastra even before shoot ing his 2013 romance, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, describing the film as “the beginning of this journey on the path where modern spirituality meets fantasy”.

“I am a lover of fantasy, that kind of storytelling really tickles my mind. Some of the divine power in our literature is deeper in me. I think Shiva is the greatest thing in the universe. I started off wanting to make a film that excited and entertained people, like Lord of the Rings; it is the best ever (fantasy fiction) created. That journey led me into drawing and creat ing my fantasy from a deeply Indian childhood, history, spiritual, culture, space. That is the dream I am chasing and am still chasing it,” he says. From the start, he knew the idea would best be expressed using tech nology. The VFX, he says, “began on paper at the same time as the story, screenplay and character” and moved into high gear during pre-production.

He describes the shift from regular feature films into high-cost VFXladen features as a “transformative process”.

“I found a much deeper commitment and went deeper into my philosophy as an artist, unleashed my imagination. I moved from thinking of myself as a storyteller and devel oped an entrepreneurship with this. I wanted to make a film that all the 1.3 billion people in India will watch and enjoy,” he says.

Brahmastra trilogy’s budget is estimated at US$50 mil lion – a fraction of the US$715 million Amazon Prime Video spent on its Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power – but still a sizeable sum in India.

How easy was it to raise the funding? Mukerji says the film’s partners (Disney’s Star Studios, Prime Focus, Dharma Produc tions, Starlight Productions) “knew that not only were we build ing a trilogy but we were building the foundation of a universe of cinema, which we call the Astraverse. It would have multiple story lines and could become this wonderful youth technology brand for our country”.

Others, like Krrish (2003, 2006, 2013) have attempted to build scal able India-led franchises. Brahmastra may well be the first, with a film for each “astra”. Mukerji says this is part of the game plan. “Two years ago we were not thinking only of the Brahmastra trilogy. While shooting Vanarastra (monkey weapon), I was thinking of the Vanarastra movie and what it would look like.”

Does the 2022 success impact how he thinks of Dev (part two) or part three? “All feedback will be considered,” he says. His target for the release of part two is around Diwali in October 2025 and end-2026 for part three.

By then, he will be 50 years old and would have lived with the trilogy

for more than a decade. Does he see a time when he will be free of the project?

“I may never be free,” he says. “I became comfortable with that... If we need to build something really amazing in India and the road map for it doesn’t exist, how can I do it if I also want to do everything else? I have to commit. There will be other filmmakers who will make the Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani kind of films.”

Mukerji says developing Brahmastra’s VFX was “so difficult. We were trying to make visual effects that have only been achieved in the West ern world, priced at Western rates and pegged to Western box-office. Our budget was in Indian rupees. Figuring that out was part one of Brahmastra.”

The VFX was done with the help of Namit Malhotra (co-founder Prime Focus & CEO of DneG). “It took me time to find them and select them and for them to select me, and for us to form this partnership,” Mukerji says. “They met me halfway and I met them halfway. Which is how Na mit became a producer on the film. It was his entrepreneurial spirit and vision for cinema in India meeting with my vision for the Astraverse and us agreeing that let’s do this.”

He also pays tribute to the icons that have gone before him and paved the way. “What Shah Rukh Khan did with Ra One (2011) years ago was the first stepping stone for Brahmastra Krrish and Rajamouli’s Bahubali (2015, 2017) also paved the way. We are now at the top of the food chain in Indian cinema on visual effects.”

If we need to build something really amazing in India and the roadmap for it doesn’t exist, how can I do it if I also want to do everything else?... There will be other filmmakers who will make the Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani kind of films.”

Ayan Mukerji, Film Director

Family ties

Taiwanese family series, Papa & Daddy, is part of the next wave of LGBTQ-themed stories, with, among other elements, grown-up characters, kids, ex-wives, blended families, career conflicts, elderly parents, expanded storylines... Zhu Zijiao talks to writer/director Nancy Chen about the multi-season show for streaming platform GagaOOlala, what she was trying to achieve, and what she would like the series to stand for.

What do you think the significance of Papa & Daddy is for Asia’s LGBTQ community? “Taiwan is at the forefront of protecting LGBTQ rights in Asia. I aim to take advantage of our conditions and resources to tell the story of a real gay family, so that other countries and regions in Asia can see the hope: is it possible for them to do the same thing one day? For I believe that everyone has the right to start a family with their beloved ones.

“In fact, I won’t intentionally glorify Taiwan’s achievements in the LGBTQ activities and welfare, as marriage is not an absolute ‘happy ending’. In other words, there is a lot more to the nature of marriage. Whether homosexual or heterosexual, there are many hurdles to overcome in the coursework of marriage.

“Papa & Daddy shows what kind of problems a family with two dads encounters. For example, they have to deal with scrutiny from the external community, the push and pull from family, and the parenting strife and distress – even though their love for their children is the same. These problems are also encountered by other families; there is nothing special about gay families.

“Of course, in the end, I still wish that we all have a happy ending, so that we can see that we have the positive energy to embrace hopefulness. I would like to show our non-LGBTQ friends, and even the whole society, that LGBTQ is just a label, and that no matter what kind of situation men and women encounter in their respective families, the most important thing is to resolve it with love.”

You’ve worked on a few titles related to LGBTQ issues, including 5 Lessons in Happiness –Throuple and History 4 – Close to You. Have your perceptions changed? Will you continue to work on these themes? “Perhaps it’s because of a special fate, or perhaps because people recognise my ability to handle this kind of story, that I’ve been approached to direct many gay and lesbian productions over the past two years. I am not a stranger to this community myself, as I have many gay friends around me and I have always been very supportive of them, and I am honoured to be able to use these opportunities to speak out on their behalf. I hope that I can break down the prejudices and stereotypes that the public has and present their stories in a more objective way. I’m definitely not averse to continuing to approach similar subjects, but I don’t want to be labeled either. As a filmmaker, I have many other types of stories in mind that I would like to tell. I feel that if the story is interesting enough and shares the same values and core spirit that I retain, I won’t reject it.”

What new elements did you bring to the Papa & Daddy sequel? “We left a hook at the end of the previous

ex-wife’s child, Jimmy, joined the family, and this part has quite a lot of stories worth stretching out, such as how [Damian’s partner] Jerry must deal with and accept the fact that his other half actually has another child.

“Both gay and straight families may face the puzzle of reunification. Maybe each of you had kids in your last relationship and then brought them into your current family. How Jimmy, the ‘new son’, affects Damian and Jerry is one of the second season’s highlights.

“Jerry not only has to deal with the relationship with his new son, but also has to confront Damian’s ex-wife. At the same time, there’s a new handsome waiter, Wei, played by Tau, in Damian’s restaurant. He seems to have some ambiguous feelings for Damian… But that doesn’t mean the pressure is entirely on Jerry’s side and Damian can rest easy because this season Jerry’s schoolboy crush, Gao (played by Peter Kuan), also appears. He is an outlet for many unspoken complicated emotions of Jerry, but also brings Damian a full sense of crisis.

“Another focus of the second season is how Jerry handles the new push from his parents. Kai, a child born to Damian and a surrogate in the U.S., is not directly related to Jerry. This season, we explore more of this part of the story, as Jerry has successfully come out, but his parents are hoping that Jerry will have his own biological child.

“At the same time, the story of Amy and Shasha, the lesbian mothers in season one, is further developed. They also have a son. The story of this child is related to the issue of gender identity. My inspiration for this story line came from the ‘Rose Boy’ Yeh Yung-chih incident [in which a young boy died after being attacked, leading to a revision of Taiwan’s gender equality act]. It carries a lot of significance in my mind.”

What were your challenges in directing the second season? “Both the story capacity and the scale of filming are much larger in the second season than the first season, and each episode is longer. The first season has six episodes. We extended it to eight in Papa & Daddy 2. A lot of new characters have come on board, and they help make the story more rounded.

“The challenge that comes with this is the increased difficulty of

filming. In the first season, there was footage of the 2020 Taiwan Gay Pride Parade. I think it’s meaningful to map a real social event into the story. In the second season, I wanted to include similar commemorative events to convey tenderness and positive power to everyone. It was a challenge for me to complete these big scenes in a limited time.

“I am still the scriptwriter of this season... like the initial season, the most difficult part is to work with children. Because Kai is around four or five years old, and the kid who plays him is not a professional actor. Therefore, there are still a lot of uncontrollable factors on set.

“In the early stages of shooting, I asked [lead actors] Muhan and Melvin to try to bond with him. During shooting, I attempted to get him to understand the situation that he had to act out. By the second season, I feel I was a little more experienced in directing young actors. Even though overall it is still difficult. I would also like to thank other actors who helped on set. For example, Yujia who plays Kai’s elder brother Jimmy; he helped me a lot on set.”

Which film directors have most influenced your work? “My junior days coincided with the new wave of Taiwanese cinema, and I was greatly influenced by Yang Te-chang and Tsai Ming-liang. I worked with Tsai as his assistant director. Both Tsai and Yang would bring a critical eye and sharply confront the problems in modern society. That’s why I particularly love the realistic parts of their films.

“At the same time, I am also of the generation that grew up watching Hong Kong films. At that time, Hong Kong films had a very prosperous market, and they had a great variety of genre elements. Whether it was police films, comedies, zombies or other genres, they were all very well-developed. This also influenced me in a subtle way. For example, I would like to be on the comedic side. I hope that apart from the story I want to tell, my work can also echo with the audience and provide them with an outlet for entertainment, as well as an outlet for emotions.”

ASIA programme

ATF 2022 highlights

The Final Score (Goles en contra)

The Nation’s Biggest Karaoke

This format sees 1,000 karaoke kings and queens whittled down to one, as they battle it out in front of an enthu siastic crowd of 6,000 karaoke lov ers. Each competitor is equipped with a microphone and sings along to vari ous karaoke hits. Behind the scenes, an expert group of singing specialists listen closely to their individual voices and eliminate them one by one, keeping only the most talented. The finalists are given the opportunity to perform a duet on stage with a singing star be fore one contestant is named the best karaoke singer. Length: Primetime for mat Banijay Rights Macdonald House, 40A Orchard Road, #03-01, Singapore 238838 T: +65 6911 3315

123 Number Squad!

123 Number Squad! follows Paula, Billy and Tim as they use numbers, counting and shapes to become a fast-response rescue team that helps the citizens of Numberville. The series offers fast and funny adventures for pre-schoolers where they’ll learn and laugh as they go, while also ex ploring key social and emotional develop ment themes – such as sharing, resil ience, teamwork, and friendship.

Length: 104 x 11min

Guru Studio 110 Spadina Ave #500, To ronto, Ontario, M5V 2K4, Canada T: +1 416 599 4878

Between 1988 and 1994, Andrés Escobar rose to fame as a premier soccer player in Colom bia while drug-trafficking boss, Pablo Escobar, started investing his money into soccer teams. The series explores these complicated rela tionships, creating the suspicion that the mys terious murder of Andrés one night is somehow connected. Length: 6x60 mins Lionsgate F/6, Zhongyu Plaza, Room 6, Beijing, China 100011 T: +86 139 1090 5613

Crypto Decoded

From Bitcoin to NFTs, crypto is making headlines. But what exactly is it, and how does it work? Experts go beyond the hype and skepticism to unravel the social and technological underpin nings of crypto – exploring how it came to be and why this new technology may change more than just money.

Teletubbies Let’s Go!

The Teletubbies are back and ready to explore the world in 3D animation in Tel etubbies Let’s Go! Teletubbies Let’s Go! is a world full of love and laughter with the added dimension of music. Each episode features a catchy song, so pre-schoolers can jump up and join in; singing, danc ing, exploring, laughing and learning just like the Teletubbies do! Length: 52x5 mins WildBrain 25 York Street, Suite 1201 Toronto, Ontario, M5J 2V5, Canada T: +1 416 363 8034

Length: 1x53 mins HD PBS International 10 Guest St., Boston MA 02135, U.S. T: +1 617 208 0728

A Little Sunshine Hakan and Elif are happily married until an accident exposes all the lies, including Hakan’s daughter with another wife. As Elif deals with her grief, she meets businessman, Fırat. A Little Sunshine explores themes of survival, love and motherhood as a woman confronts be trayal by her husband. Length: 45 mins (In production) atv Güzeltepe Mahallesi, Mare ş al Fevzi Çakmak Caddesi, B Blok, No:29/1/1, Eyüpsultan, Istanbul, Türkiye T: +90 21 2381 2848

contentasia

The Gymnasts

From Oscar-winning producer Indigo Film, this stunning drama combines powerful coming-of-age stories with a compelling murder mystery as it tracks the most im portant week in the lives of an elite team of teenage athletes as they compete for Olympic selection. Many of them have spent years dreaming of victory, so when it is revealed that a competitor has died, the police suspect murder. Length: 6x60 mins All3Media International 1 George Street, 10-01, Singapore 049145 T: +65 9459 2139 E: international@all3media.com

OPJ season 3 (Pacifique Criminal season 3)

Deep End

Maria Clara and Ibarra

Klay is a young woman excited to graduate from university so she can work abroad. However, she has to pass Rizal Studies first. One day, Klay wakes up to find herself in the world of Jose Rizal’s nov el, Noli Me Tangere. She tries desperately to return to the present but needs to finish the story and learn her lesson. She meets the characters in the novel, Maria Clara and Crisostomo Ibarra, who teach her the value of history, empathy, patriotism and love. Length: 50x45 mins GMA Network GMA Network Center, EDSA cnr Timog Avenue, Dili man Quezon City, 1102 Metro, Manila, Philippines T: +632 8982 7777 E: GWI@gmanetwork.com

The Elon Musk Show

The daily life in a judicial police squad from Nouméa, New Caledonia, under the command of Inspector Clar issa Hoarau. This third season takes Clarissa and her team into the unique and uncharted worlds of Reunion Island. In the heart of a distillery and sugar cane fields, in a borderline student fraternity, at the home of a brother and sister impatient to see their grandmother die, on the lagoon and in the Highlands... Each investiga tion will shake up the police officers, already challenged by the ups and downs of their private lives.

Length: 18x52 mins TV5MONDE AsiePacifique Unit 704-706, &/F, Cyberport 1, 100 Cyberport Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong T: +852 2989 6090 E: asie@ tv5monde.org

Li Ching, a talented police officer, investigates a teenage cybersex crime and falls victim to her own vices in the process. Plunged into the ‘deep end’ of the dark web, the series exposes the alarming ideologies that are manifested in a world being shaped by technology. Length: 5x60 mins CJ ENM Hong Kong Ltd Singapore Branch 16 Collyer Quay, #13-00 (Suite 1326), Income@Raffles, Singapore 049318 E: liling.tan@cj.net

Vegesaurs

Vegesaurs are the juiciest and crunchi est creatures ever to rule the planet in a colourful prehistoric era. The young Tricarrotops Ginger lives in Vegesaur Valley, a little garden of Eden bathed in sunlight with nutrient-rich soil, lush vegetation and even temperatures… A perfect patch that a rich ecosystem the Vegesaurs call home. Each episode is a standalone miniadventure driven by Ginger and her friends, the baby Pea-Rexes. The stories lean into relat able themes for upper pre-schoolers like mealtimes, sharing, friendship and play.

Length: 20x5 mins Studio 100 Media GmbH, Neumarkter Str. 18-20, 81673 Munich, Germany T: +49 89 9608 550 E: vanessa.windhager@studio100me dia.com

Elon Musk is one of the richest men in the history of humankind. To some he is a tech genius, boldly exploring space and reshaping the way we live. To others, he is a divisive and controversial figure with too much influence over individuals and governments. This documentary series, featuring insights from friends, family, business-associates-turned-rivals and more, takes us inside the life of Elon Musk – like never before. Examining the triumphant successes and cata strophic failures that have defined his journey, it reveals the man behind the media circus, as we ask who the real Elon is, how he got where he is today and at what cost. Length: 3x60 mins Fremantle 3 Fusionopolis Way, #06-21 Symbiosis, Singapore 138633 T: +65 6307 7227 W: fremantle.com

programme

Lu and the Bally Bunch

An animated dramedy about a threeand-a-half-year-old with a brand-new social life. Exploring the everyday drama of life in pre-school, Lu and the Bally Bunch is a funny and affection ate look at what happens when six centers of the universe must learn to get along. Length: 75x7 mins, 1x22 mins (Holiday Special), 25x1 min (Intersti tials)

9 Story Distri bution Inter national Unit 20, Block C, Smithfield Market, Smithfield, Dublin 7, Ireland T: +353 1 872 1608

E: distribution@9story.com

Super Sema

Super Sema follows the world-changing, STEAM-fuelled adventures of a brave and heroic 10-year-old girl, Sema, and her twin brother MB as they protect their African village from the villainous Tobor and his bungling robot army. A heartless artificially intelligent ruler, Tobor meets his match in Sema, who learns that with determina tion, creativ ity and a helping hand from the amazing worlds of sci ence and technology, anything is possible! Super Sema is the world’s first-to-launch Afri can animated kids’ superhero franchise, produced by London/Nairobi-based female-led studio, Kukua, and exec produced and starring Oscar-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o (Black Panther, 12 Years A Slave). Length: 20x5 mins & 24x11 mins Cake Floor, 50 Marshall Street, Carnaby, London W1F 9BQ, U.K. T: +44 (0) 207 307 3230

E: info@cakeentertainment.com

Bardot

Young and free, Bardot (starring Julia de Nunez) was passionate and liberated while defying the rules of the society of the time. Unanimously considered the most beautiful woman in the world, Brigitte Bardot provoked, in spite of herself, a worldwide sexual revolution. A woman ahead of her time, 10 years before the lifechanging events of May 68. Daughter of a good family, Brigitte Bardot became an inter national icon after And God Created Woman The series focuses on the first years of her superstar life, as she deals with her new status while trying to find her true self. Length: 6x52 mins Federation Studios 10 Rue Royale, 75008 Paris, France T: +33 1 84 25 02 70

Loaded in Paradise

An adrenaline-fuelled reality game show where party-loving pairs island hop around Greece in a race to take control of – and spend – EUR50,000. Only one pair can control the gold card loaded with cash at any one time. This lucky pair get to live it up on the run, while the pen

That Girl

niless pairs hunt them down. After each 48-hour chase, everyone reconvenes at a luxury safe house. Culminat ing in a big twist on the final leg, it’s guaranteed to be a wild ride! Length: 15x60 mins (flexible) ITV Studios T: +31(0) 8824 83111 E: ayesha.surty@itv.com

Ten Piedad de Nosotros (Mercy on Us)

Zeynep, burdened with family and financial issues, dreams of leaving her miserable life behind. The only place she feels young and alive is at the home of celebrity Ozan, where she works as a part-time cleaner. There she meets busi nesswoman and social media power, Sitare, who is also Ozan’s secret lover. Zeynep has little social presence and is envious of the stars who have thou sands of followers. Sitare offers to help, and Zeynep’s star will shine. But the reality is much rougher and dirtier than she imagined. Kanal D International 100. Yıl Mah. 2264. Sk. Demiroren Medya Center, Apt. No:1/21 34218 Bagcılar, Istanbul, Turkey T: +90 212 413 6090

In 1990 at a private school, a group of students assaulted two classmates, causing permanent injury. Thirty-three years later, Octavio Moro and Lucas Nantes, two city policemen, will be responsible for an investigation of murders that involve events from their past and compromises their future. Length: 6x30 mins Dori Media 2 Raul Wallenberg st., Tel Aviv, Israel T: +65 8338 3719 E: haikal.jamari@dorimedia.com

Los Hermanos Salvador (The Salvadors)

The five Salvador siblings must come together to restore the glory of their antique and magic shop and thereby save the family legacy. But in doing so, they will have to settle their differences and learn to work as a team.

On the other hand, the Quiroga siblings have the mis sion to end that legacy. This confrontation triggers a series of supernatural adventures. Length: 10x30 mins Dori Media 2 Raul Wallenberg st., Tel Aviv, Israel T: +65 8338 3719 e: haikal.jamari@dorimedia.com

Kung Fu Pork Choppers

Kung Fu Pork Choppers follows a team of five galactic out-ofthis-world pigs in space and their super-powered Splaximal pets, transformed by the slimy substance “Splaxis” from the cutest creatures to mega-sized fighting machines. In their actionpacked quest to right wrongs, the Kung Fu Pork Choppers take off on planet shattering adven tures, chock full of the coolest and craziest heroes and villains imaginable – and unimaginable – and much, much more!

Jetpack Distribution Spitalfields House, Borehamwood, Hertford shire, WD6 2FX, U.K w: www.jetpackdistribution.tv

Last King of The Cross

Order Up!

Order Up! follows Fresh Off the Boat star Hudson Yang on the ultimate chef apprenticeship crash course across America to Singapore. Having a fulltime acting career means that Hudson must compress the classic training. Hud son travels across the U.S. to visit renowned, accomplished chefs and restaurants, before flying to Singapore where he pushes himself to tackle even more difficult and unique chal lenges. While others take years to master these complex dishes and techniques, Hudson only has a few days. It’s the ultimate pressure cooker and stakes are high; can Hudson stand the heat? Length: 8 x 60 mins Blue Ant International 99 Atlantic Ave, 4th floor. Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6K 3J8 T: +1 416-646-4434 / T: +1 416 454 0692 (Nick Solowski, Senior Director, Interna tional Sales & Acquisitions)

Inspired by John Ibrahim’s best-selling autobiography charting his rise from a poverty-stricken immigrant with no education, no money and no prospects to Australia’s most infamous nightclub mogul, Last King of The Cross is an operatic story of two brothers who organise the street but lose each other in their ascent to power. The series stars Lincoln Younes (Grand Hotel, Tangle, Barons), Claude Jabbour (Eden, Stateless), Callan Mulvey (300: Rise of an Empire, David Macken zie’s Outlaw King), Tess Haubrich (Spiderhead, Alien: Covenant), Maria Tran (Truy Sat, Echo 8), Matt Nable (Riddick, Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms), and Tim Roth (The Hateful Eight, Lie to Me, Sundown). Length: 10x60 mins Cineflix Rights First Floor, 275 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8QB, U.K. e: sales@cineflix.com

In the Shadows

In the Shadows is the story of Julia and Magdalena, members of an elite group that strives to solve the most perplex ing crimes in record time. The two women have very dif ferent lives. Julia lives happily with her husband and son, and Magdalena searches for her stepfather, who abused her when she was a child. Julia’s personal life takes a turn upon the return of Iván, a well-known crimi nalistics expert who was the love of her life years before and who abandoned her for an unknown reason. Magdalena takes an interest in him and gives life to a tense love triangle that unfolds as they search as a team for those responsible for the most mysterious crimes of their careers. Length: 60x60 mins Caracol Televisión. 150, Alhambra Circle, Suite #1250. Miami, Fl, 33134 U.S. T: +1 305 960 2018 (Miami, Estados Unidos)

A Year on Planet Earth

On our planet’s annual orbit around the sun, the energy reaching the surface shifts up and down the latitudes, giving us our seasons, and creating opportuni ties and challenges for all life on Earth. Across four episodes, this series reveals the extraordinary adaptations and be haviours of the world’s most spectacu lar wildlife as they not just endure but make the most of all that the seasons can throw at them. Length: 6x60 mins ITV Studios Level 1, 19 Harris Street, Pyr mont, NSW, Australia T: +2 61 93834360 e: carla.ferry@itv.com

atfprogrammepicks

Summer Love

Funny, moving and uplifting, Sum mer Love is an enchanting anthology series in which eight very different sets of people rent the same beachside holiday house and experience some incarnation of love. From the two couples who discover their friendship has reached its expiry date, and the gay couple who confront societal expectations versus what they really want, to the sisters who take time out to recharge but somehow manage to bring the chaos of their lives with them, the drama travels across gender, class and culture to deliver eight fresh, authentic and relatable stories.

Length: 8x30 mins Red Arrow Studios International Medienallee 7, 85774 Unterfoehring, Germany T: +49 89 9507 7303 e: sales@redarrowstudios.com

On Marriage

On Marriage focuses on portraying all those struggles couples encounter when they give up themselves in order to fulfil the demands of their marriage. In this anthology series, each individual episode explores varying meanings of marriage from five unique perspectives.

Length: 10x60 mins. Taiwan Public Television Service Foundation No.100, Lane 75, Sec. 3, Kang Ning Rd., Taipei 114, Taiwan T: +886 2 2633 8118 e: julian58@pts.org.tw

The Smeds and The Smoos

On a faraway planet, Janet and Bill meet in the Wurpular Wood and fall in love. Their warring families, The Smeds and The Smoos, cannot ac cept the match. But when Janet and Bill elope, they have little choice but to put aside their dif ferences. Length: 1x26 mins Magic Light Pictures 4th Floor, 41-42 Foley Street, London, W1W 7TS, U.K. T: +44 (0) 20 7631 1800 e: distribution@magiclightpictures.com

Cattleya Killer

The closed case of the longdead Cattleya Killer is resurrect ed when a corpse appears with the same markings. Top agent, Anton dela Rosa, gives his all to crack the mystery his father once solved. However, as he digs deeper into the case, Anton finds himself at the center of the investigation. Length: 6x45 mins (Psychological Thriller) ABS-CBN & Nathan Studios, Inc. ELJCC Bldg., Mo. Ignacia Ave., Brgy. South Triangle, Quezon City, Philip pines 1103 T: +632 8924 4101

Vocal Like Locals

U Motherbaker – The Movie

A sequel to the popular series, U Motherbaker, the movie is a Taiwanese family comedy about culture and the challenges of transforming a traditional cake shop. The film spin-off depicts the mother’s adventures of being the number one fan of the superstar OO. Length: 120 mins Bole Film Co., Ltd. 8F, No. 3, Songren Rd. Taipei City, 11010, Taiwan T: +886 2 8780 1166 e: dennis_wu@bolefilm.com.tw

A reality singing competition that brings together amateur singers from all over the world. In this format, contestants will have the opportunity to sing a local hit from their favourite foreign country. While not nec essarily even speaking the local language, their love for the local music and culture will help them express their affection for a country through a song. Featuring a lineup of renowned celebrity judges, contestants will compete to advance to a final championship round where one singer will be crowned champion and have the chance to meet the singer of their favourite local hit. Length: 60-180 mins Nippon TV 1-6-1 Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan 105-7444 T: +81 3 6215 3036 e: nippontv-ibd@ntv.co.jp

Sweet spot

The original Malaysian story of a man promised a life of luxury as a sugar baby has put Chinese streamer iQiyi in a sweet spot.

As iQiyi’s corporate bosses announced the company’s “iconic turnaround” for Q3 2022, the Chinese streamer’s Southeast Asia team was celebrating a win of its own – Rampas Cintaku, a dark romance about a young man desperate to get out of debt and escape harassment from loan sharks. He decides to work in a nightclub where he meets a wealthy businesswoman who promises him a life of luxury as a ‘sugar-baby’

The Malay original topped the streamer’s charts in Malaysia, ending its run with over 100 million digital views. This makes the 14-episode series, produced in collaboration with MIG Productions, the top (and most profitable) local title on the platform in Malaysia, iQiyi says.

Dinesh Ratnam, iQiyi’s country manager for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, describes the performance of its Malaysia originals so far as “a solid start”, and says it paves “the way for local originals to have substantial revenue stream potential for iQiyi in Malaysia”.

Rampas Cintaku, which premiered on 23 September, is one of five Malaysian originals iQiyi announced in Dec 2021. The others are sitcom My Ofis, about rock star wannabe Jasper who relinquishes his dream and enters corporate life, produced in collaboration with Kuching-based Longhouse Films; director Aidilfitri Mohamed Yunus’ Sorry Naik Lori with Tsar Asia, about a housewife whose TikTok video goes viral; time-travel romantic drama, Love You Later, with Juita Viden; and Infinitus Entertainment’s Restu, about a recently widowed father and three marriage prospects who need to meet the approval of his grieving daughter. My Ofis ran earlier this year. At press time, seven of Sorry Naik Lori’s 12 episodes had dropped. Restu is scheduled for 2023. Love You Later’s release date is yet to be confirmed.

Ratnam says Rampas Cintaku’s “exceedingly high viewership demonstrates the strong appetite for hyper local content with authentic storytelling that is real and differentiated.”

He adds that the slate of made-in-Malaysia dramas showcases “the

authentic Malaysian culture and language to international audiences, while contributing to the local creative industry”.

Like almost everywhere, the demand from streaming audiences is for “something edgier” than they are used to on regular TV platforms. In Malaysia, this translates to topics that deal with, for example, women’s empowerment and cross-cultural diversity.

Across the region, iQiyi has been bold in surfacing attention-grabbing stories – topped by its Thai original, KinnPorsche: The Series La Forte, a BL series about the son of a Mafia don rescued by a part-time student, who becomes his bodyguard.

If he can’t exactly go there in his markets, Ratnam nevertheless speaks up for valuing “differentiation”, “unique storylines that represent the essence of local communities”, and being part of a strong production environment. “It’s our goal to be an active driver in the local content ecosystem,” he says.

This follows the two years since the Malaysia launch acquiring prime-time drama rights from the country’s broadcasters, which iQiyi Malaysia will continue to do. At the same time, Rampas Cintaku’s performance has given the team in KL valuable validation. “We continue to double down on productions and formats that compliment our licensed local content,” he says.