2024 Khmer Artist Association Presidential Successor

 

The Khmer Artist Association, adhering to a five-year election cycle mandated by its regulations and the Ministry of Interior, is set to choose a new president. The extension of outgoing president Chorn Chan Leakhena's term due to the pandemic has led to a call for candidates with a blend of arts dedication, experience, and leadership qualities aimed at supporting and promoting artists, including those vulnerable. Sos Mach, the previous president, and Mr. Chum Kosal from the Ministry of Information have outlined the need for a candidate with a commitment to Cambodian arts, integrity, collaboration, and a blend of knowledge in arts, culture, and social matters, alongside a scandal-free life and strong public engagement skills.

This election's notable candidates, promoted on social media, are Ms. Khat Sokhim and Mr. Kouch Kevin, who both seek to address the current shortfalls and enhance the Cambodian arts scene, drawing on their respective backgrounds in traditional Khmer art and entertainment. Election details and criteria are yet to be announced by the Cambodia Artists Association.

Ms. Chorn Chanleakhena,
the Current President of Khmer Artist Association

Mr. Chum Kosal,
the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Information

Ms. Khat Sokhim,
Cambodia Artist

Mr. Kouch Kevin,
A well-known Cambodian producer

Mr. Sos Mach
A well-known Cambodian singer

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120$ marketing impacts alcohol advertising in Cambodia

In 2023, Cambodia's advertising sector saw a downturn due to a global economic slump and the aftereffects of COVID-19, which depleted people's savings. This led to reduced advertising budgets, including cuts in billboard, TV and digital spending, affecting all media channels. Despite this, leading Cambodian alcohol companies like Hanuman Beverages, Khmer Beverages, Ganzberg groups, and Vattanac Brewery remained competitive, engaging audiences with special events such as boxing and concerts broadcasted on social media and TV, under their activity to promote their alcohol product with a strategy 'Drink beer for prize.' This strategy, despite its controversial nature, yielded positive outcomes for the companies, even as demand outpaced production.

However, the start of 2024 marked a significant shift with the Cambodian government banning alcohol advertising that offers prizes or encourages consumption, especially among the youth. This decision was influenced by public backlash against a promotional boxing event that exploited young participants for marketing purposes, sparking widespread online disapproval.

This event offered four young participants from provincial areas the chance to win a total of $120 by explaining why they drink beer and by participating in a ring pull challenge, all broadcasted live. The public expressed sympathy, regret, anger, and disdain towards this '120$ marketing' strategy, leading to the government's decision to restrict such advertising practices.

Picture sourced from Phnom Penh Post

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Strategy to manage TV content for quality and popularity in Cambodia

 

To manage content for broadcasting on TV, we need to produce a master schedule (24-hour schedule) and then create a separate schedule (mainly focusing from 5am to 11 pm which is the timeslot people stay tuned). We need to know the mass market and target audiences. For example, viewers like watching TV in the morning from 7-8 am, what type of content fits them, and who they are.  Always practice test and learn about the content that we are broadcasting. We measure it via a rating. If the research shows it's low rating, then it means the content is not good. 

To start as a newcomer and big local television, there are more difficulties as the market size in Cambodia is small and there are many business competitions. More, there are content buying competitions and limitation of human resources. We need local creative ideas for local production to improve content quality. Even all these stuff takes time, we believe and expect to get a position as one of the leading televisions in the country (No.1 or No. 2). We will take 3 years based on our investment and market situation (cited from Ms. Thyda in 2016). 

If the young generation wants to lead TV content production with quality and popularity like short dramas and series, they need to have good knowledge of production skill. Moreover, they need to learn and research to create their own work with more effort and should not care about time. Importantly, they need to understand what local audiences like. Then again, to be a good production lead, they need to have good experience, skillful teamwork, and production management. If producers have these criteria, they will get jobs and more demand contents to produce. These requirements are not about the impediment to them. While budget spending on drama production is big and most importantly million of viewers are seeing the content. If anything is wrong, we must face it and have a good explanation of what we are broadcasting. If the production team cannot deliver content to a TV channel to broadcast on time, that is another big problem. There are three factors to consider to be a good production. 1- Creative of the content, 2-talent and production skills 3- suitable production equipment.  

Due to the demand by audiences for good content, we also do research for content abroad. It was difficult to source good content in the old past period (the 2000s) like which titles were good and who was the license owner of those contents. However, in a new era, sourcing for foreign content is not difficult.  like the film market in Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea, every year we can go there and purchase good foreign contents. However, there is a big challenge for us to think about our market. i.e. we spend a 100K budget to purchase foreign content to broadcast, add on air time and extra dubbing costs. We need to answer this strategy if this is worth buying that content for our business and market. Simply, we need to make sure those contents are fit for our audiences and attract advertising.

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A Big Challenge for Cambodian Drama in the past

 

Cambodian local TV drama series has been under challenge in the past several years because of having no demand for such content by TV broadcasters and of momentum for watching by local audiences who always believe in its low quality. What local film production did was to produce a movie for theatre, instead. In previous periods, Cambodian leading TV broadcasters focused mainly on airing foreign drama content such as Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pilipino, Thai, etc… a reason behind this favour was because of a lack of human resources (there was no incentive for local drama experts to come up and produce), and no investment from local broadcasters. The price of foreign drama content was 5-10 times below that of the local one. i.e. a single episode of Indian drama content 45mins was about 350$, a Chinese drama cost may be up to 500$ per episode, and Korean is about 700$ (all does not include translation and dubbing cost). In contrast, local drama cost was between 2,000$ - 4,000$ per episode. Yet, the market price for foreign drama content always went up year-to-year because TV broadcasters competed with each other to purchase.

From an advertising point of view, you would see why local TV broadcasters chose foreign drama to air. For instance, channel A planned to air drama content in prime time slot 7-8PM from Monday to Friday (22 days within a month). A local drama per episode costs $ 3,500$; Korean drama content costs $ 700$ per episode, so the calculation would show that the monthly cost of airing local drama was $ 77,000$ and that Korean drama was $ 15,400$. The choice of TV broadcaster would exactly be the last. Do you know why? Suppose a TV Commercial spot price was 150 USD dollars in the prime time slot 19h00-20h00, and the total spots were 30 spots within an hour. If selling advertising spots with a total amount that prime time, channel A would earn 4,500/EP (this amount times twenty-two days would equal 99,000$). Thus, if you chose to pay a local drama cost 77,000$, you would profit 22,000$ whereas if you select to invest in Korean drama content, you would profit 83,600$. This answered that there was no incentive for local TV broadcasters to purchase and produce local drama content to air for their audiences.

Even so, there was not always the same; it was a sudden shift in the demand for local drama content in Cambodia after the restriction from the Ministry of Information calling upon all broadcasters to stop airing foreign content during prime time from 19h00-21h00, entered into force on 1st November 2015. The policy was the main drive and an invaluable rule to awaken leading TV local broadcasters to twist to focus on local content so that they could bring new content in local taste to their audiences, push local productions to the next level, and build up a new stream of their audience despite having loss advantage of revenue focus. The first two Channels to start local drama were Bayon TV and CBS, followed by PNN, Hang Meas, and TV5 Cambodia. Last but not least, one of the key successes of those broadcasters was a rating. Many TV broadcasters aired foreign drama content in Prime Time to gain ratings and revenue because it was the most significant source of income for TV broadcasters. Exclusive programs and sponsored Main & Co also contributed volume but less profit margin. All of this above was why we could not enjoy watching local drama for the last several years. 

 

Picture from Facebook

Picture from Facebook

Picture from Facebook

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Message from a well known Cambodian boxing producer (since 2019)

 

Thailand has dozens of boxing associations and organizing committees. Once they want to make arrangements for the fight, they can do it accordingly in their respective regions. Cambodia has only one boxing federation. If anyone wants to organize a boxing match fight, they has to go through the federation; otherwise, it is illegal. In Cambodia, television is an entity to establish boxing programs. In Thailand or Laos, the boxing program is organized by the Boxing Association or the Boxing Federation.

To bring Kun Khmer boxing to the next level, it's not easy and it has to be:

1) Fans/Supporters who truly love Kun Khmer

2) Do not take boxing as a bet and gambling

3) Do not match players without knowing the exact weight for domestic and foreign

4) Do not despair and discourage any local boxers

5) There is a need for full support from the non-partisan federation.

6) Supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.

7) There is support from the Royal Government because only the government can mobilize the well-known people and the rich people to love sports.

People in the Facebook community never understand how small television broadcasters face the difficulties of matching and contributing to the formation of player resources. Only the federation understands this, but they don't know. 

A well-known Cambodia boxing producer- Sithet Ma

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Preah Kai Chan Talk on Social Media ' No more future competitions if she cannot advance to Miss Grand International'

Not even passing the qualifying round in Phnom Penh, Preah Kay Chan claims not to compete in other programs if she does not pass Miss Grand International.

The Miss Grand Cambodia 2024 contestant confirmed this on her social media: "I have applied for the Miss Grand Cambodia. If I did not qualify for the Miss Grand International, I would not apply for the competition. "No. Thank you for your support. I will not disappoint you. I will try more for Cambodia."

This kind of self-esteem also surprised the public, especially the lovers of the international competition show, as she has not yet passed the qualifying round in Phnom Penh and has to work harder to compete with other outstanding candidates from provinces in Cambodia, yet she already dared to say such words.

Many local supporters of Miss Grand International wonder if such a statement would be like saying that if the CEO, Im Sokunthea, did not give her a big crown, would there be any consideration to let her join the tops or not? 

The Cambodian actress, Preah Kay Chan, has decided to join the competition after years of strengthening her abilities. Participating in this competition is her big dream after she promised her father when he was alive- no matter what the result is, Preah Kay Chan is determined to do her best.

At the same time, the familiarity with various competition shows and experiences from social work in the past makes this beautiful girl have high expectations to be able to win the Miss Grand Cambodia 2024 crown.

This year, Preah Kay Chan is 28 years old, 1.73 meters tall and can speak Khmer, English and Thai. Preah Kay Chan is wearing a badge representing Tuol Kork district

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Curiosity of Cambodia artist Tea Boprek owning Lamborghini Aventador

A Well-known singer Tep Boprek surprised the public and fans, especially her boyfriend, the famous rapper G. David, because she gave a gift of a Lamborghini Aventador sports car worth hundreds of thousands of Dollars, the car of the couple's dream more than 10 years.

However, the show has sparked speculation among social media users and fans alike that the car could be purchased for cash or in instalments.

For fans of the famous singer-songwriters Tep Boprek and G-David, the purchase of this car is done with cash, no instalments because they both have the ability and enough money. On the other hand, they are both stars in the market right now, so there is nothing to buy in instalments.

However, for some fans who were not satisfied with the rapper, G. David said that showing a luxury car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars is more likely to pay in instalments than buying in cash.

For the couple G David and Tep Boprek, despite the comments from fans, both satisfied and dissatisfied, they are happy for the achievements they have achieved in the past. In particular, the acquisition of their dream property, even if they do not disclose it as a purchase of cash and instalments.

Please note that recently, the famous couple  G. David and Tep Boprek have been very prominent in both fashion appearances at major events abroad, including local concerts. The rise in both the market and the price tag made the couple decide to buy the property of their dreams.

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Will Battery Life Last to Next Season III?

An authentic traveling video content about living away from the hustle and bustle produced by a popular Cambodian actor Mr. Khat Vaihang is renowned as "Battery Life” which is available on various social media platforms. The content has been strongly supported in terms of its title because it encourages everyone to value the meaning of life by traveling to relax and experience new things and places they never knew. 

The show is promoted widely on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok every week. It reaches relevant viewers who want new content with their choice of medium access. The show appears on the Cambodian television channel with a rating of 7  points. More interestingly, advertisers will get good-quality content and advertising to uplift their brand on leading and big social media platforms with millions of Cambodian users, estimated at around 10.95 million (Jan 2023 by datareportal.com).

Battery life season II may finish at end of November 2023. And there is no clue if the next season will be available. However, this content is the first video greatly produced and widely promoted. It also helps promote local tourism by featuring different local destinations and regular life in Cambodia. 

To watch the show, refer to the link   Battery Life / YouTube

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