.jpeg)
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 |
.jpeg) |
| Picture from Facebook |
.jpeg)