From: The Straits Times, Life! 29 October 2010 Low ratings for local dramas. By Lin Wenjian
Viewers say the lack of variety, unrealistic dialogue and similar plots turn them off.Is local TV drama in dire straits?
Even Singapore’s original TV First Couple, Huang Wenyong and Xiang Yun, cannot prevent current MediaCorp Channel 8 drama series, The Score, from, well, failing to score good ratings.
In fact, it might even have less than half the number of viewers a top-rated local drama gets.
Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao recently reported that The Score has a viewership rating of between 10 and 11 percent since it debuted in the traditional prime time slot of 9pm on Oct 4. On some nights, the rating even fell to a single digit. The series, a soap opera cum crime drama, will end next Friday.
In 2007, Like Father Like Daughter, a popular Channel 8 drama in the same time slot, achieved 20.5 percent in ratings. The Little Nyonya, MediaCorp’s most-watched series in the last eight years, chalked up a rating of about 26.3 percent, or about 934,000 viewers.
One percentage point is equivalent to 1 percent of all TV households in Singapore.
A MediaCorp spokesman responded to Life!’s queries, saying: “The average reach of the The Score is 14.3 percent.”
However she did not refute the lowest-rating figure of a single digit, as reported in the Chinese paper.
The Score’s poor showing may not be an exception. Earlier this year, Korean drama Cruel Temptation, which ended its run on Channel U recently, dealt a ratings blow to Channel 8’s home-grown production, the family drama Your Hand In Mine. The 94-episode drama became the first Korean series to beat a local production showing in the same time slot in Channel 8.
The poor ratings do not surprise some viewers who have stopped watching Channel 8 dramas.
Customer service manager Eva Siow, 30, says: “Local scriptwriters and producers lack creativity.
The plots of many Channel 8 drama series are very similar and sometimes I can’t even tell them apart.”
Lianhe Wanbao entertainment journalist Tan Chew Yen agrees. She says: “The main problem with local dramas is their lack of variety. All year round, we get regular doses of family drama.”
Account executive Ken Kuan, 28, says he and his family have not followed a Channel 8 drama since they subscribed to cable TV more than five years ago.
His biggest bugbear is he “unrealistic dialogue” in local dramas. “Who talks like that in real life? I cringe every time I switch to Channel 8.”
Life!’s Asian TV reviewer Foong Woei Wan elaborates on this shortcoming in local drama scripting. “
With some Channel 8 dramas, you don’t get a sense of the complex multilingual reality of Singapore,” she says. “In the Zoe Tay housewife drama La Femme, you have people saying ‘songbing’ and not ‘muffin’. Who says ‘songbing’?”
“It’s more believable to have characters who can discuss important dramatic stuff in Mandarin, but would still say ‘muffin’. But as it is, some dramas seem to take place in some strange parallel universe.”
She compares the situation here to Hong Kong, where TV scriptwriters have no qualms about using English buzzwords to add a dose of reality to the lines.
While retail supervisor Chen Wenxin, 38, says he watches Channel 8 dramas, he notices “the TV company seems to like to promote the good-looking actors, rather than the experienced ones”.
The result, he says, is mediocre acting dished out by “the newbies”.
This also bugs Ms Foong, who misses former TV thespians such as Xie Shaoguang, “who are charismatic actors capable of filling up the screen on their own”.
Consultant Wayne Weng, 29, says he watches local dramas, but only some of those shown on Channel U, as “they usually have better cinematography and direction and are more innovative as well”.
He was referring to recent Channel U shows such as The Illusionist, which aired in March and starred Thomas Ong.
Despite the recent spate of poor ratings, Channel 8 dramas still have their regular supporters. Retiree Wee Siew Eng, 60, says she enjoyed Ann Kok’s portrayal of an abused wife in The Family Court, which aired just before The Score.
“She is pretty and acts well. If we don’t watch local shows, who will?”
Despite his grouses, Mr Chen will also continue to watch Channel 8 dramas – out of necessity.
“The cost of living is already high enough, so I don’t want to spend more money on cable TV subscription.
Besides, Channel 8 dramas can be rather entertaining in terms of how bad they can be.” -----
This issue has been discussed to death since the beginning of the decade. Every now and then such articles will be published, criticizing the standard of home-grown productions and proving how unpopular it has become, especially whenever a drama fails to achieve good ratings.
The ‘grass is always greener on the other side’ argument is not very applicable here as a huge standard gap can be observed even if you put the two patches of grass side by side.
Putting the topic of drama quality aside, there might be other underlying compounding factors that perpetuate this ‘local crisis’.
It looks like the diversity of Singapore’s culture has taken a toll on the viewership of local programmes, particularly Channel 8 dramas.Diversity means that people of other races like Malay and Indians are less likely to watch Chinese dramas.
Diversity means that foreigners are generally not supportive of local dramas. The local-flavored plots are unable to strike a chord with these people.
Diversity also means that English-orientated faction within the Chinese community may not appreciate dramas presented in Chinese language.
With such heterogeneity in the population, only a small slice of potential audiences can be carved from the pie. The problem of SG’s small market was already highlighted as the main reason for the media merger 6 years ago.
The true competitors are not rival TV stations, but the formidable foreign opponents, whose productions are posing an ever huge threat to local programme ratings.
In the recent years, the availability of foreign programmes through the Net and increasing choices of cable TV subscription have encouraged many to depart from traditional TV watching.
Without any actual figures, I’m guessing that the proportion of teenage viewers (around age 12 -25) has been declining over the years. Most of the current viewership probably comes from middle aged folks who experienced the ‘golden age’ of local dramas in the 1990s. These folks are also less tech-savvy than the young to search for other foreign programmes online, hence they tend to stick to watching free-to-air dramas.
I predict that the viewership of local programmes will continue to dwindle in the future as people start to seek their own preferred forms of entertainment elsewhere.
Talking about dialogues being unrealistic? Let’s bring the argument further.Singaporeans are well-known for their broken language and tendency to mish-mash different languages in a single sentence. Well, that’s our way of life - our natural way of speaking, but the aims of local productions (or rather MDA) are attempting to change that, by promoting the use of good language. Thus it is no wonder why dialogues can be so unrealistic and unreflective of our interaction style.
To exemplify, police and court scenes are as unrealistic as it can ever get. English is the official language of communication used across all governmental boards. Is it even possible to see the police describing a crime case in Chinese, or a lawyer addressing the judge as ‘法官大人’? How about large companies having their corporate meetings entirely in Chinese?
The ‘no-dialect’ policy adopted by local TV also contributes to the disparity as a large proportion of older folks are still using dialects as their main language.
Yet on the other hand, viewers will start complaining if programmes were to incorporate Singlish or Singnese. Clearly the best of both worlds can’t be achieved in this case.
With so many native PRCs in Singapore speaking in their perfect Mandarin, we don’t need local Chinese programmes to deal a further blow to our weak language abilities.
Everyone speaks English, but why are local English shows not appealing?English dramas definitely win Chinese dramas hands down in terms of being realistic. However that does not necessarily mean that the dialogues are more natural. Singaporeans are not native English speakers after all, and have a weird cheena accent that can even make our own people cringe. Singlish is deemed as inappropriate, while fake accents put people off. Let’s face it, we are better off speaking in our own mother tongue instead. At least the accent is more acceptable.
The problem is aggravated by another issue - the local showbiz industry is facing a lack of talent inflow and replacement. Good looking artistes can’t speak Mandarin well, and the fact that local productions are skewed towards Chinese doesn’t help. English speaking artistes are often forced to participate in Chinese shows if they want to develop their career and popularity. Unfortunately, speaking in a non-familiar language is major barrier even to experienced actors. Look at Pierre Png and Adrian Pang. Their acting skills are still very much limited by the way they speak, which is a waste as they are unable to exhibit their full potential.
Due to economic influence, coupled with its small market and instability, the local entertainment industry is repelling potential artistes with its low payout to risk ratio. One might not be able to gain much benefits of fame and recognition despite being capable and talented. The time and effort invested into local showbiz is often not worth it compared to other countries like Hong Kong.
Sadly, judging from the way it is going now, I see no future in local drama productions if the current veteran artistes begin to retire.
