Translator’s Note: The below is the second of a multi part “special feature” article about the 2012 HK Television Wars that was published in ND Daily News last week . The remaining parts will be translated and posted in the coming weeks.With this being a ‘war’, of course it’s standard to bring out the ‘weapons’ and battle it out to see who wins. However, since the 3 new free-to-air licenses have not been issued yet, it makes sense for the parties involved to keep their most ‘damaging’ weapons concealed, revealing just enough to gain the momentum they need – prior to the start of the ‘official’ war, they must first fight the smaller verbal and psychological battles in their efforts to establish their positions.
The three new ‘powers’ that will be entering the battle field – City Telecom, NowTV, and i-Cable – can be considered the ‘offensive’ in the impending war. In looking at the 3 companies, NowTV and i-Cable have the best advantage from a technology standpoint, however the company that has been making the most ‘noise’ at this juncture is definitely City Telecom, led by its chairman Ricky Wong -- this ‘General’ (Ricky Wong) has already been eagerly ‘marketing’ his aspirations to the world in the hopes of using the momentum to strengthen his camp. With this ‘war’ just getting started, which of the companies will truly have the strength and tenacity to remain until the end? In planning their offense, what ‘weapons’ will each of these company’s leaders utilize?
The 2 parties on the “defensive” in the impending war are of course the ‘lone powerhouse’ TVB and the ‘perpetually weak’ ATV. In the past few years, TVB has certainly encountered some challenges when it comes to defending its ‘powerhouse’ status: the aggressive poaching of its staff as well as the seemingly endless complaints about its unfair policies and politics have certainly had a significant impact on the station’s reputation. Given the circumstances, what steps are TVB taking to combat this crisis? And what about ATV? They may be backed into a corner right now, but with the other parties already taking action, they can’t continue to just sit back and observe – it’s time for them to fight back!
With the TV ‘war’ set to break out in the coming weeks, ND Daily’s reporter paid visits to each of the leaders and exclusively interviewed them about their plans for the upcoming battle, their ‘secret’ weapons, as well as their assessment of their opponents in the hopes of gaining some perspective on the anticipated battle. As for who will end up actually winning this war, audiences will have to wait and see….
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City Telecom (CTI)
Chief Leader: Ricky Wong
Leader’s Background: City Telecom Limited’s founder and chairman; in the telecommunications business, he is known for being creative and not necessarily ‘playing by the rules’; when it comes to tactics, he’s good at ‘sidelining the ball’ and is an expert at battling adversity; nicknamed ‘telecom prodigy’.
Overall Strategy: Poach talent with the lure of big money; focus on creating high quality, ‘golden timeslot’ series.
Advantages: Massive wealth and bold language; rely on sincerity and high salaries to recruit personnel; artists have unrestricted freedom and are respected. Good at utilizing the Media to fight ‘verbal’ and ‘psychological’ battles; takes a high profile, ostentatious approach
Disadvantages: Most of the artists he ‘poached’ are not first-line siu sangs or fadans, so whether he will be successful in attracting audiences will depend on the overall final product. Also, his studio has not been built yet, so for the time being, filming locations will need to be rented.
Strategy 1: Poaching talent with the lure of high salaries: “Most important in the future development of television is people”
In today’s HK television industry, there isn’t a single person who does not know of Ricky Wong. He is a vigorously ambitious man who is intent on changing the landscape of the HK television industry and ‘rewriting’ all the current rules of the game. In September of last year (2011), Ricky Wong started his ‘poaching’ strategy by luring away dozens of TVB scriptwriters, copy editors, directors, and assistant directors with the promise of doubling their salaries; at the same time, he personally met with many of TVB’s siu sangs (male leads), fadans (female leads), green leaf (supporting) and ‘gam cho’ (elder) artists – in addition, he sent out mass text messages recruiting artists to join his company. Even though majority of the artists he was able to successfully ‘poach’ are green leaf or second/third line artists, his ‘mantra’ of allowing “unrestricted freedom” and the “freedom to appear on any TV station at any time” helped him to successfully attract popular middle-aged siu sangs and fadans – such as Felix Wong, Maggie Cheung, etc. – who did not want to be tied down to one TV station.
With every move designed to counter TVB, Ricky Wong held the groundbreaking ceremony for his new Television and Multi-media Center in Tseung Kwan O back on 2/24 and invited all of the former TVB artists who signed with him – such as Felix Wong, Maggie Cheung, Frankie Lam, Bernice Liu, etc. – to attend. By building his studios near TVB as well as ‘showing off’ the artists he was able to successfully sign, it seems like he is once again ‘flaunting’ his power in TVB’s face.
On the day of the groundbreaking ceremony, ND Daily’s reporter got the chance to personally interview this ‘telecom prodigy’ and to better understand his strategy in the face of the war.
During the interview, Mr. Wong indicated that he is already seeing initial results from his ‘poaching’ strategy: “As of right now, we have already successfully signed 140 artists, with many them being first line as well as ‘talent path’ artists – by the end of the year, we are anticipating a total of 250 artists signed to our company. In addition, we have already put together a group of behind-the-scenes production and creative staff, consisting of approximately 180 people – many of them have already started work. By the end of March / beginning of April, CTI will start filming our very first television series.”
Indeed, the poaching strategy has been Ricky Wong’s most ‘damaging’ strategy against TVB to date, as it created a ‘hole’ in TVB’s creative team [aka scriptwriters], causing artists such as Wong Cho Lam, Damien Lau, etc. to have to step in and do screenwriting work, which ended up being a huge blow to the dignity of the remaining screenwriters at TVB. Even golden producer Lee Tim Sing has lamented about not being able to secure a female lead for his last series before retirement [the series “Detective Columbo”] and having to take care of all matters – big and small – all by himself due to the lack of personnel.
Discussing his philosophy when it comes to working with his people, Ricky Wong’s response seems to indirectly imply that TVB does not respect talent: “Actually, when it comes to development and growth of the television industry, the most important component is the ‘software’ – in this case, the ‘software’ is the ‘people’. Therefore, learning how to respect people is of the utmost importance.” Indeed, TVB does have a reputation of not valuing talents, especially the ‘non-biological’ ones – also, the numerous complaints and discontent with the low pay and long working hours were all reported on widely by the Media last year. So with this strategy, Ricky Wong took advantage of the timing [when discontent with TVB was at its peak], honed in on their weaknesses, and is now reaping the benefits.
Strategy 2: Reveal TVB’s weaknesses; speaks ‘boldly’: “We will be producing 3D TV programs in the future”
At the groundbreaking ceremony, at the subsequent university recruitment seminars, and each time he talks about his ‘TV dream’ with reporters, not only does Ricky Wong utilize astounding numbers to describe his operations, he also takes every chance he gets to ‘indirectly’ point out that TVB is too old-fashioned, its policies are old, and its material is outdated.
On the day of the groundbreaking ceremony, ND Daily’s reporter asked Mr. Wong what type of ‘rules’ he wanted to establish, to which he replied: “Establish rules that are fair and give artists the opportunity to develop rather than be tied down to one TV station.”
Asked about what type of themes he wants to explore in his series, Mr. Wong replied: “We don’t want to keep doing the same old ‘family fighting over inheritance’ or traditional love story themes and we definitely don’t want to keep going back and forth between the same 2 to 3 story concepts. We hope to have more diversity and have a lot of different themes.”
When asked about how he would provide audiences with ‘high quality’ programs, Mr. Wong replied: “Others use plastic in place of glass and use fake posters to represent an outside location – we will use real scenery and real locations!” He also expressed that within the next 3 years, his company will be producing a TV program completely in 3D. In addition, he will be investing $600 to $800 million HKD to build a production center that is as big as 33 football stadiums, with aspirations of it being the largest filming studio in all of Asia. He also has plans to produce the first television musical in Hong Kong’s history.
Ricky Wong’s plans are definitely targeted at TVB’s weak spots – actually, TVB had once included the creation of a 3D television program in its plans, however due to limitations with their transmissions and technology, the plans fell through.
Indeed, it seems that even the artists and behind-the-scenes personnel who have joined Ricky Wong’s company have been indirectly pointing out the ‘limitations’ to TVB’s productions and the hindrance it poses to creativity – with Felix Wong stating that there’s “more opportunity to develop here [CTI]” and Maggie Cheung stating that the “new environment gives a lot of freedom”. With Ricky Wong adding his comments on top of that, the ‘criticism’ of TVB automatically becomes ‘headline news’ in the entertainment papers the next day!
With concrete productions actually being worked on right now by both sides, there’s no telling at this moment who will win the battle. For competitive leaders such as Ricky Wong who are eager to come out the winner, employing psychological warfare right now is not necessarily the wrong thing, as long as it suits him.
Future Prospects: Start filming in April, production process completely transparent
Compared to TVB’s usual policy of keeping its production process largely closed off to the public, Ricky Wong’s production ideas are more ‘daring’: “Our television production center will include a long glass corridor where ordinary citizens and students can come observe the production process, including filming series and shows, doing voice-over work, makeup, props, sets, etc. – this way, they can truly understand what goes into producing a series and the joy that it brings. This will help bring us closer to the audiences.”
In April, Ricky Wong’s first series will start filming. Since their filming studio has not been built yet, CTI has already rented 2 studios for filming internal shots – the rest of the filming will be done on location.
Ricky Wong also revealed some additional plans for the future: “We will start off by filming 2 to 3 series at the same time – we’re estimating that we’ll produce about a dozen series totaling 260 hours and also 104 hours of variety show programming by the end of this year. In 2013, the plan is to increase production to 650 hours of drama series and 520 hours of variety show programming.”
Source: ND Daily News
Translated by: llwy12 @ AsianFanatics
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