Global Media Journal – Malaysian Edition ISSN : 2231-9948
Volume 5, Issue 1, 2015
PRODUCING TELEVISION PROGRAMS RELEVANT TO ALL MULTI-CULTURAL SOCIETY IN MALAYSIA
Musa Abu Hassan, Ph.D Fauziah Hassan1 Rosidayu Sabran, Ph.D Zulkiple Abd Ghani, Ph.D Suria Hani A. Rahman Faculty of Leadership and Management, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Malaysia.
Abstract
Like many countries, television enjoys a special interest among the society, even though information and communication technologies (ICT) have invaded the country. In 2010, the coverage of TV is about 75 percent of the population as compared to 77 percent of radio and 56 percent of newspapers. In the same year it was reported that adults spend 3.5 hours of watching TV per day as compared to 3 hours listening to radio and 2.4 hours engaging with Internet. The objectives of this paper are to examine the number of programs that were produced by TV stations in a week, and to identify the category of the programs produced by the stations. Data for this research was collected from published TV programs of the Free to Air (FTA) TV stations for a period of one week. Among others, the elements of TV program recorded were program genre, language, origin, duration of program, time of broadcast and target audience. The findings showed that each TV station has their own interest, target and focus in selecting and broadcasting TV programs to their audiences. Even though each TV station has fragmented their audience according to the language of TV programs, it is believed that the government’s effort to promote a harmony life in a multi-cultural society through TV programs is successful.
Keywords: TV program, program genre, spiritual development, multicultural society.
INTRODUCTION Television program is the ‘heart’ of media content whether in television channel, radio station, cell phone, MP3 player, website or any other media. Eastman and Ferguson (2009) defined 1
Corresponding author
1
Global Media Journal – Malaysian Edition ISSN : 2231-9948
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programming as an outcome of a process that includes the process of selecting, scheduling, promoting and evaluating programs. The aspect of programming is very important for good programs would be able to attract the target audience. A good programmer should also be able to schedule the program effectively.
Selecting and scheduling of the TV programs need creativity and skills. Eastman and Ferguson (2009) outlined five elements in good programming namely compatibility, habit information, control of audience flow, conservation of program resources, and breadth of appeal. They also stressed that the most crucial element in selecting TV programs is the control of audience flow. This is due to the fact that listeners and viewers have the freedom of choice to choose any channel (TV) or any medium. Therefore, it is important that programmers offer attractive and quality TV programs. According to Roslina, Wan Amizah and Ali (2013), the advent of the new communication technologies have also brought transformation to the audience. The new technologies have changed the way people communicate, share and receive information. This has thus resulted people are more engaged to these new technologies. It is because; the technologies offer a wider opportunity such as downloading of videos, watching movies online, downloading free music and video clips and many more. Thus, it is important that television, as a more traditional media, especially the government-owned television stations should work hard to compete and maintain popularity and its existence.
THE MALAYSIAN SOCIETY AND MEDIA Recent statistics reported that there are 6,895,000 household in Malaysia. The three dominant ethnic groups are Malays and other Bumiputras (67.4 %), Chinese (24.6 %), Indian (7.3 %) and
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others (7 %). It was also reported that about 71 % of the population was represented by the people form the urban areas (www.statistics.gov.my). As of second quarter of 2013, it was reported that 97.7 % of the population have access to the Free to Air television (FTA TV), while 3,637,000 have subscribed to pay TV and 481,500 have subscribed to Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) (www.statistics.gov.my). There are seven FTA TV stations that are owned and operated by the government (two stations) and private companies (five stations). There are also three companies that operate the pay TV: ASTRO is operated by the DTH, IPTV is operated by TM and ABN.
Yet, as reported by Media Planning Guide 2013, Malaysian society especially in the age category of 15 years and above engaged with the radio which constitutes 92% with 67 types of radio channels over the air radio services in the country. Most radio stations used the Malay language as its language of interaction. However, there are also radio stations that broadcast in English, Chinese, Tamil and the ethnic language. There are also print media with 12 Malay language newspapers, 18 English, 19 Chinese and six Tamil daily newspapers (Media Planning Guide 2013, 2013). The advent of the Information and Communication Technology, the public are also seeing the increase in use of the new media and it was reported that there are 6,240,000 Internet subscribers through fixed lines and wireless. While the mobile phone subscription has passed the total population as it stands at 42,604,000 who were using the prepaid and post-paid payment system (www.skmm.gov.my). Thus, it is common to see Malaysians to own more than one mobile or cellular phones.
However, this paper will focus on the TV programs in Malaysia. Television was introduced in Malaysia in the late 1963 with the broadcast of RTM 1 by the government. The introduction was 3
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intended to transmit information and entertainment programs of a competitive standard that caters to the varied needs of the audience using the latest techniques while fulfilling the nation's vision (http://korporat.rtm.gov.my/en/about-us). According to Fuziah et al. (2011) RTM still focused on its mission to be the platform and disseminator for national agenda. This is the very essence of RTM to always share important and relevant information to nation-building. In 2009, RTM attempted its rebranding to the new concept by diversifying documentaries, magazine and talk shows programs. As stated by, Abdul Azizal and Fauziah Kartini (1997) in Fuziah Kartini et al., (2011) TV 1 focuses more on national programming and TV2 has more diverse, multicultural programming. Thus, it is to support the role of RTM as a government body and therefore it presents the government information and policies.
Radio Televisyen Malaysia or RTM is owned by the government and it has two main TV channels which are RTM 1 (TV 1) and RTM 2 (TV 2). The government also controls six other national radio stations and 28 regional radio stations such as Klasik Nasional FM, Minnal FM, AiFM, TraxxFM, KLFM, AsyikFM, SabahVFM, SarawakWaiFM and radio negeri (http://mystream.rtm.gov.my/). According to Fuziah Kartini, Abdul Latiff, Emma Mirza Wati, Arina Anis and Hasrul (2011), RTM is the national television especially its TV 1. The term national television describes that the television broadcasting is owned and maintained for the public by the government and focusing on educational, informational and cultural programming. Thus, RTM is playing the role of national television by introducing many TV programs which contains positive messages to maintain the reign as national television. According to Karthigesu, (1994), RTM’s programming is aimed for national development. Whilst, the private television stations were heavily focuses at the Malays (TV3) and Chinese (8TV and NTV7) (Amira Firdaus, 2006). 4
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On 1st June 1984 Sistem Television Malaysia Berhad (TV3) was launched and announced that they are the first and only private television broadcasting in Malaysia. It becomes favourite TV station and Malaysia’s leading FTA TV network through combining the best of local and international content to reach its viewers (www.mediaprima.com.my). Another study on Media Prima’s programming highlights that TV9 and TV3 are focused for the Malays whilst, 8TV and NTV7 are targeted for the Chinese. These situations were stemmed from commercialization policy and the urgency for maintaining national unity in a multicultural nation (Rosidayu Sabran, 2014). Lent (1990:55) highlighted that media content in Malaysia is guided by the Rukun Negara, the five key national ideology promoting towards racial harmony. Asmah in Lent (1990) indicates that RTM shows the most multicultural content with noticeably during holidays and festivals as compared to other channels. The other channel under the Media Prima management is 8TV that was launched in January 2004 which aims at the young urban audience and also the Chinese market. Among the popular and top programs are Hot FM AM Krew, Jukebox Morning, The Legend of Taiwan 2, Best of Hokkien Drama (A Place Called Home), Best of TVB (Twilight Investigation), The 8TV Quickie and many more. These programs were mainly aired from 7.00 am until 2.00 am.
There were various types of programs that were produced to cater for the different ethnic groups such as the Malay, Chinese, Indian, etc. Obviously each TV station has its own vision and intended audience. For example, Media Prima Berhad owns four TV channels namely TV3, 8TV, NTV7 and TV9. In addition this media conglomerate also owns three highest circulations of national newspapers and three radio networks (www.mediaprima.com.my). Each of the TV station, newspapers and radio networks has their own target audience and provide different concept to show the variety they have. It was found that majority of the Malay watch TV 3 and 5
Global Media Journal – Malaysian Edition ISSN : 2231-9948
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TV9. This was due to the fact that the channels aired many Malay dramas and a variety of religious programs that suit the Malay community. While, 8TV and NTV7 are for the Chinese community as the TV programs aired were Hokkien dramas, entertainment and game show programs which mostly used English, Cantonese and Mandarin as its language of interaction.
Thus, the main idea of this paper is to look on how television can help and support the campaign of promoting the multi-cultural society concept through TV programs.
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY The objective of this study is to examine the extent to which television seeks to create harmony among multicultural society in Malaysia through TV programming. This study focuses on four FTA TV stations that comprise two government stations (TV1 and TV2) and two private stations (TV3 and 8TV). The specific aims of the study are as follows:
To examine the number of programs that were produced by each TV station in a week duration;
To identify the genre of the programs produced by the stations; and
To identify the language and program origin by each TV station.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY To achieve the objectives of the study, a textual analysis methodology was conducted. The data was collected from the online version of TV Guide for a period of one week starting from 3rd 6
Global Media Journal – Malaysian Edition ISSN : 2231-9948
June
2013
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9th
until
of
June
2013
(http://www.thestar.com.my/Lifestyle/Entertainment/TV/TVGuide/). The duration of one week TV program is adequate since in a weekly cycle, TV stations normally will repeat the same slot or genre but only different in content or topic. A recording form was used to record the program genre, language, program origin, time of broadcast and the target audience. It took one week for the researchers to collect and classify the TV programs according to the objectives. After reviewing all the programs in the TV Guides for the four selected stations, the programs were clustered under categories such as news, documentary, drama, movie or film, sports, talk show, cartoon, game show, religious programs and unknown. A total of 934 programmes were evaluated from TV1 (286), TV2 (251), TV3 (249) and 8TV (148). The data was then summarised using descriptive statistics.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION Below are the findings of the study based on its objectives: 1) The number of programs and genre that were produced by each TV station in a week duration TV 1 Total
Percentage
GENRE
TV 2 Total
Percentage
News Documentary/ Magazine Capsule Drama
93 42
33 15
Drama Cartoon
60 52
24 21
35 34
12 11
44 24
18 9
Religious Talk show Entertainment Promo Cartoon Movies Reality Show Sports
17 16 12 10 6 5 4 4
6 6 4 4 2 1.7 1.4 1.3
News Documentary/ Magazine Promo Talk show Movies Capsule Sitcom Sports Cookery Religious
18 11 10 6 6 5 4 4
7 5 4 2.4 2.4 2 1.5 1.6
GENRE
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Game Show
2
0.7
Cookery 2 0.7 Entertainment 2 0.7 Game Show 1 0.3 Unknown 2 0.7 Special Program 1 0.3 Unknown 1 0.3 Total 286 100 251 100 Table 1: The Distribution of the number of programs and genres of TV Programs on TV 1 and TV 2
The table above shows the list of TV programs broadcasted by TV1 and TV2. The analysis was conducted on the data obtained from the one week TV programs broadcast over the two selected television stations. The findings have shown that TV1 broadcasts the most programmes per week (286 programmes) and TV2 highlighted 251 programmes per week. The findings also indicate that News and Drama are the most frequently broadcast genre across these two TV stations. News (33%) and documentary/magazine (15%) and capsules (12%) consecutively are the three top program genres in TV1. In contrast, drama (24%), cartoon (21%) and news (18%) top the first three program genres in TV2. The analysis of this study indicates that news tops the list of program genre on TV1 and drama program appears to be the most frequent program genre on TV2.
It is also indicates that the programming strategy of TV1 is in line with the station’s objective as a government tool for disseminating national policies and propagation for the mass audience regardless of their ethnicity and culture. TV1 broadcasts more informative programs such as news, documentary, religious and talk shows in their programming. Most of the programs in TV1 are produced in the Malay language. However, Arabic, English and Indonesian languages also were used in TV1. None of the program in TV1 uses the Chinese language in the content including the current popular cultural content. This approach is part of the government initiatives to inculcate the Malay language as the national language of the country among all ethnic groups. 8
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Even though the majority of the programs broadcast in TV1 are produced locally, the government is serious in enhancing greater racial harmony and national stability of the country. As such, TV2 station seems to offer some interesting contents for the non-Malay audiences such as English drama, Mandarin drama, English news, video clips and etc.
The findings from this study show that there are more entertainment programs being broadcast on TV2 with drama and cartoon/anime genres at the top of the list. Other forms of entertainment genre include movies, comedy, game show and musical/variety. Although the station has adopted the private TV programming style that promotes popular content for audience, as one of the government channels, TV2 ensures that informative content is not neglected. The TV station programming highlights a more balance content of entertainment and informative programming. This is evident from the findings where news, documentary/magazine and talk show seem to be featured as the third, fourth and fifth most broadcast program in the schedule. GENRE
TV 3 Total
Percentage
GENRE
8 TV Total
Percentage
News 55 22 Drama 55 37 Drama 54 21.7 Entertainment 37 25 Talk Show 29 12 News 14 10 Cartoon 27 11 Cookery 9 7 Docu/Mag 18 7.2 Reality Show 6 4 Promo 18 7.2 Closing 6 4 Religious 13 5.2 Cartoon 5 3 Cookery 11 4.4 Sports 4 2 Sports 7 3 Capsule 4 2 Movies 5 2 Movies 3 2.2 Sitcom 3 1.3 Talk Show 2 1 Reality Show 3 1.3 Sitcom 1 0.7 Entertainment 3 1.3 Docu/Mag 1 0.7 Capsule 1 0.4 Game Show 1 0.7 Total 249 100 148 100 Table 2: The Distribution of the number of programs and genres of TV Programs on TV3 and 8TV
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The table above shows the list of TV programs broadcasted by TV3 and 8TV. TV3 scheduled to have 249 programmes per week, whilst 8TV only broadcast 148 programmes per week. As a private television station, there is a clear evidence of commercial elements in the TV3’s program scheduling. The majority of the station programs are locally produced either through direct program sales, co-production or TV format adaptation. News, drama and talk shows are the top three program genres in TV3’s programming. Other program genres broadcast in TV3 are cartoons, documentary/magazine, religious program, cookery/women program, sports, movies, comedy, entertainment and reality show. TV3 appears to have highlighted more informative programs than the entertainment-based programs.
The study also highlights that TV3 has improved its programming by showcasing more informative programs rather than those with entertainment content. The station has provided its audiences with greater exposure to various programs with different languages that suit the international tastes. However, the station should also increase its Indian and Chinese programs if it intends to attract audiences from the two ethnic groups. This will thus, assist in strengthening strong racial understanding and will boost unity as well as social harmony and economic stability.
Meanwhile, the analysis above shows that among 148 programs in 8TV, drama genre constitutes the highest percentage which is 37% and followed by entertainment genre (25%) and news genre which is only 10%. The majority of the programs broadcast on 8TV are entertainment-based content. Drama and entertainment/musical/variety programs are the most popular content. Other forms of entertainment content are cooking/women, reality show, cartoon/anime, movies and 10
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sports. News, talk show and documentary/magazine are the least popular content in its programming. This has been supported that 8TV is an interactive platform for audiences united by a common desire for authenticity and self-expression. It is a hot-bed of creativity featuring original, local and international entertainment wrapped in interactivity. According to www.mediaprima.com.my, since its inception, 8TV has achieved many milestones in the broadcasting industry such as carrying the 'live' broadcast of the 'Grammy Awards', ‘Academy Award', 'UEFA Euro 2004', Formula 1 and A1 Grand Prix, Malaysian Idol. 8TV also continues to produce well-received in house productions such as Malaysia's Most Beautiful, I Wanna Be A Model and the mother of all talent-search shows, One In A Million.
2) The language and program origin by two TV station. Language Malay English Mandarin Arabic Tamil Korean Cantonese Hindi Mixture
n % Origin n % 294 55 Local 392 73 122 23 Imported 120 22 35 6 Unknown 25 5 29 5 24 4 7 1 1 1 1 1 19 3 537 100 537 100 Table 3: The distribution of language and program origin on TV 1 and TV 2
Table 3 shows the total number of TV programs broadcast by the government-owned TV station which are TV1 and TV2 in the selected week. The stations aired more than 500 programs weekly with the news programs dominating the TV slots (25%). This is followed by the drama program which takes up 18% of the total slots. In terms of the language use, Malay language is the main language used in the TV programs (294), followed by the English language which is used in 122 TV programs. Only one TV program uses the Hindi language and Cantonese language. The
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majority of TV programs (392) on both TV stations are produced locally, 120 TV programs are imported and the origin of 25 TV programs cannot be identified.
The analysis above shows that Malay language is the most used language especially in TV1 indicates that the government-owned TV station is more focusing into national language compared to other foreign language.
Language Malay English Mandarin Hokkien Cantonese Indonesia Korean
n 196 79 40 18 16 15 10
% 49 20 10 5 4 4 2.5
Japanese Philippine Hindi Taiwanese Mixture
5 4 2 1 11 397
1 1 0.5 0.25 2.75 100
Origin Local Imported Unknown
n 254 127 16
% 64 32 4
397
100
Table 4: The distribution of language and program origin on TV 3 and 8TV
Table 4 shows the language and program origin on the private TV stations of TV 3 and 8TV. These two stations aired 397 TV programs in the selected week. In terms of language used, the use of Malay language still dominated which was 196 or 49%. Only 79 TV programs used English language and very little use the Taiwanese, Hindi and Philippine languages. The table also showed that 254 of TV programs were produced locally and 127 of TV programs were imported. There were 16 TV programs that were not identified of its origin.
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The majority of the programs in the TV3 channel use Malay language, followed by the English as the second most popular language used in the programming. The popularity of Indonesia Sinetron drama places the Indonesian language in the third position. On the contrary, Japanese, Hindi, and Cantonese are amongst the least frequently featured language in TV3’s program content. It was also found that the Indian and Chinese content are very limited on TV3 programming because of its niche business that focuses content for the mass audience and modern Malays.
English is the most used language in 8TV’s programs. This is followed by other forms of Chinese languages namely Mandarin, Hokkien, and Cantonese. Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese are other foreign languages identified in its TV programming. Content with Malay languages is also broadcasted and maintained minimal in ensuring that it stays focused at a specific target group that fulfills local TV content guidelines. According to Moran (1998) media globalization has also influenced television content distribution across various continents including Asia that influence audience behavior. The popularity of Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese content, cultural proximity and cheaper importation package are the reasons for the inclusion of these programs (Stemeers, 2004) in 8TV’s programming.
CONCLUSION Comparison between the government-owned and operated TV stations and the private TV stations showed that the government stations broadcasted more TV programs (537) in a week as compared to the private stations (397). Likewise, from these programs that were aired, government TV stations produced more local programs (73%) as compared to the private 13
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stations (64%). With regards to language used, the government stations had 55 percent of the TV programs used Malay language as compared to the private stations which were only 49 percent. However, the private TV stations imported more TV programs (32%) as compared to the government stations (22%). Analysis of the TV programs can be an indicator for understanding the preference of the audience with regard to the media content. However, with the transformation of TV programming in some TV stations particularly under Media Prima Berhad (MPB), the government is facing greater challenges in generating audience understanding and confidence over the administrative development plans (Rosidayu, 2014).
With regards to the genre of TV programs produced and broadcasted by the government TV stations and the private TV stations, there were no distinct differences. It looked like the stations on both sides were serving the audience with variety of programs that include informative, educational, entertainment, sports, spirituality and hobbies to name a few. The presence of TV programs in various languages also reflects the concern of the TV stations in serving the multicultural nature of the Malaysian society.
Economically, commercialisation had created fragmentation of audience according to language and ethnic groups particularly in TV3 and 8TV. Television content might seem balance in terms of genre and language overall. Nevertheless, business factor had allocated a TV station for specific group especially in private station. Such a situation seems unhealthy and further expands the gap between the Malays and non-Malays.
Limited Chinese content in the government stations illustrate greater possibilities of informative dissemination failure between the government and the non-Malay groups particularly in urban 14
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cities. It is therefore suggested that the government channels should showcase impactful nonMalay programmes to increase government credibility. Multicultural elements must be one of the key ingredients of television programmes across all channels, containing specially-packaged content that suits every TV station target audience.
Nevertheless, the Malaysia free-to-air TV stations provide ample platforms for the Malays and Chinese audience but allocate limited channel for the Indian societies. This environment should be overcome to close the gaps between the Chinese, Indian, Malays and other ethnic groups which would gradually lead to nurturing unity in the multicultural living system in Malaysia. Obviously, TV stations have a crucial role to play in this situation.
REFERENCES Amira Firdaus (2006) Ethnic Identity and News Media Preferences in Malaysia, paper presented at
ARC APFRN Signature Event Media: Policies, Cultures and Futures in the Asia Pacific Region, 27-29 November 2006,
Curtin University. Eastman T.S and Ferguson A.D (2009) Media Programming: Strategies and Practices. Boston: Wadsworth. Fuziah Kartini Hassan Basri, Abdul Latiff Ahmad, Emma Mirza Wati Mohamad, Arina Anis Azlan & Hasrul Hashim. (2011). The Survival of Malaysia’s National Television Within a Changing Mediascape. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, Vol. 16 (3), 1-13. Retrieved from https://innovation.cc/scholarlystyle/fuziah_kartini16v3i2a.pdf Lent, A. J. (1990) The Development of Multicultural Stability in ASEAN: The Role of Mass Media, Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 1(1), 45-59. Media Panning Guide Malaysia 2013 (2013). Kuala Lumpur: Perception Media Sdn. Bhd. Moran, A. (1998), Copycat Television: Globalisation, Program Formats and Cultural Identity, Luton: University of Luton Press. 15
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Rosidayu Sabran, (2014). Political Economy of Conglomeration and Its Impact on Television Programming: A Case Study of Malaysia, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Leicester. Roslina Abdul Latif, Wan Amizah Wan Mahmud & Ali Salman. (2013). A Broadcasting History of Malaysia: Progress and Shifts. Asian Social Science: 9(6), 50-57. Steemers, J. (2004), Selling Television: British Television in the Global Marketplace, London: British Film Institute.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fauziah Hassan, A Tutor at Communication Program at the Faculty of Leadership and Management, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia since 2009. Previously worked as a Media Relations Executive at Malaysian National News Agency for one year before joining USIM as a Tutor. She has experienced in teaching Communication and Journalism subjects such as Principles of Journalism, Communication Theories, Media and Society, Creative Media Writing, News and Feature Writing and etc. She obtained her Master Degree in Mass Communication at UiTM Shah Alam, Selangor in 2011 and now continuing her study in Ph.D level at Universiti Putra Malaysia in the same field. She can be contacted through email:
[email protected].
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