Vietnamese Television: Boring content due to low investment

Television content producers say that the current mechanism for cooperation in producing broadcast content on television channels is facing many difficulties because the funding is too low, so it is difficult to have good content. That is the reason why foreign channels still occupy a large area on pay television.

Illustration photo

According to Ms. Ngo Bich Hanh, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Media Corp – BHD, the Vietnamese pay TV market for domestic content production enterprises is very low. With the lowest monthly subscription price of pay TV in the region (average only from 4-5 USD – PV), advertising is mainly on promotional channels. Therefore, TV content production companies without broadcasting channels like BHD really have difficulty producing content for pay TV, because the funding source is too small.

The budget for producing a TV series is very small, only about 100-200 million VND, the most invested film is only about 1 billion VND. That is the reason why foreign content on pay TV is still a vast land, not for content produced domestically.

According to Ms. Hanh, reality TV shows in Vietnam are receiving large investments because they attract a lot of sponsorship. This is in contrast to foreign companies, where feature films are invested in much larger amounts than reality TV. Small budgets will not be able to produce good content to broadcast on foreign channels.

Ms. Le Thi Phuong Thuy, Director of Dream Field Studio (HTV3) said that HTV3 has its own TV channel and does advertising business on it, so it is proactive in both output and advertising business, thereby improving the quality of content for the past 2 years. Currently, all major pay TV companies such as SCTV and VTVcab are investing heavily in content production, which shows that investing in domestic content production is the best.

However, Ms. Phuong Thuy said that if businesses invest in independent content production, it will be very difficult. Because if content producers cannot maintain exclusivity due to copyright infringement and are dependent on TV stations for profits. In foreign countries, content producers enjoy 10-15% profit and are entitled to copyright to do business with other sources.

The biggest difficulty for content producers is that technology is developing too fast, how to develop content to meet the needs of multi-screen broadcasting is a huge challenge. For example, content shared on mobile is more expensive than abroad, if abroad, the content provider only shares 20% of revenue with the network operator, while in Vietnam it is 40-45%. High costs, rapidly changing technology are many challenges for television content producers.

The advantage belongs to producers who have content distribution channels, they spend prime time to broadcast their programs. Ms. Thuy suggested that VTVcab or SCTV should open their doors to independent producers, because the stations also need to diversify content to provide service packages.

Another opinion also said that the current content trading mechanism of the stations puts pressure on independent content producers, they have to worry about producing good content and ensuring advertising revenue, while the broadcast program is copyrighted by the station. The content production enterprise ultimately gets nothing. The stations need to have a more open mechanism for content producers to be able to have better programs.

Sharing about the cost of producing television content, Ms. Nguyen Tram - Stevenin, Chief Representative in Vietnam of FOX International Channels also said that without money it is difficult to have good content, financial investment is an important issue to improve the quality of television content.

When entering Vietnam, FOX's first step was to localize its channels, and the second step was to cooperate with domestic businesses to develop program formats that met local standards. Currently, many FOX programs have been filmed and produced to suit Asia-Pacific audiences, including episodes specifically for Vietnam. FOX's strategy is to cooperate with local content producers to have channels that serve Vietnamese audiences.

Ms. Tram also said that foreign companies are very concerned about copyright respect. If FOX spends money to cooperate with domestic enterprises, the first requirement is that copyright must be respected.

Regarding this issue, Mr. Ta Son Dong, Deputy General Director of VTVcab, said that the problem of content quality of programs in general, and cable TV in particular, lies in the fact that the main source of revenue for television comes from advertising. If revenue can be increased, it will be easier to reinvest in content, create programs that meet audience needs, and good content will also contribute to increasing revenue. Therefore, the main problem for content producers is to choose to invest correctly, VTVcab is willing to share better if producers have good content.

According to ICTnews