ntv7 wants to "relaunch" Chinese programmes next year to attract its lost Chinese viewers? Sounds yes, but Media Prima is going to transfer CJ Wow Shop Chinese segment from 8TV to ntv7 and then extend its program hours.
Recently there is a news reporting that Media Prima will extend CJ Wow Shop Chinese Mandarin segment on ntv7, effective on 31st December 2018. On 31st December 2018 and 1st January 2019, ntv7 will broadcast special live program of launching CJ Wow Shop Mandarin extended segment.
Start from 2019, NTV7 will have no more Malay shows, its slots will be filled by CJ Wow Shop Chinese segment at non-peak hours. Besides CJ Wow Shop Chinese segment, ntv7 only leaves Korean shows at peak hours. In addition, ntv7 will broadcast some rerun Chinese programs and dramas from 8TV such as 活力加油站 Living Delight, 環島8 Let's Cycle, and 新蕭十一郎 New Xiao Shi Yi Lang.
News in Mandarin Chinese, Malay and English will be remained as usual. In March 2018, NTV7 is rebranded as Modern Malaysians' TV station by airing modern Malay shows, Korean shows and some English as well as Turkish dramas. Moreover, ntv7 is also airing Thai drama, meanwhile its Chinese slots were fully moved to 8TV, leaves only Mandarin News.
In my opinion, the rebranding exercise of ntv7 in March 2018 seems like unsuccessful due to lower viewership. I think that Malay viewers highly prefer TV3 for free-to-air TV, even they go to watch pay TV channels. Besides FTA TV, the Malaysia's pay TV company Astro has free satellite TV, known as NJOI, provides few free Malay channels such as Astro Prima (CH105), and soon defunct Astro Maya HD which are competitors of TV3 and NTV7.
Due to unsuccessful rebranding exercise of ntv7, coincidentally Media Prima gains revenue via CJ Wow Shop, especially Chinese segment shopping programmes, CJ Wow Shop Chinese segment attracts 45% of Chinese customers in 2017/18, Media Prima decides to extend CJ Wow Shop Mandarin Chinese segment on ntv7 in 2019 in order to cover the loss-making of ntv7.
Hmmmm.. Television industry is more difficult than radio actually, it is very challenging to establish a television station because content is the king. When a TV station offers unattractive content, it is unable to attract viewers and advertisers, which cause loss-making revenue.
Free-to-air television nowadays is very challenging as it faces many competitors such as Video-On-Demand, YouTube, iflix, Netflix, dimsum by The Star and pay TV. In addition, people nowadays don't really watch TV anymore because they prefer to watch their favorite contents via digital platform such as VOD, Youtube etc which is non-linear media.
Non-linear media is more interactive to consumers, people can decide themselves to watch the content. Free-to-air television is linear platform, which is decided by broadcaster.
I understand that launching of CJ Wow Shop will create controversy and make many viewers angry, but Media Prima has no choice, the media company has to do that because it lost revenue year by year. To cover loss making revenue, shopping TV programme is launched, so they can make money by selling products to the viewers.
In conjunction with analogue switch off of terrestrial television on 31st March 2019, all free-to-air television stations move digitally via DVB-T2, so about Media Prima TV networks, the group may not want to handle many TV stations, so at least 1 of 4 current TV station will be closed down within 3 years.
I guess Media Prima is highly focusing TV3 and 8TV, if touch wood NTV7 and TV9 cannot cover their loss-making revenue although launching CJ Wow Shop in Mandarin and Malay respectively, so Media Prima may close down these two TV stations in order to cut cost. TV9 currently broadcasts extended CJ Wow Shop since 5th March 2018 after the rebranding exercise of ntv7, but in 2019, NTV7 broadcasts extended Mandarin CJ Wow Shop.
For disposing and ceasing loss-making TV stations, if a loss-making broadcaster closes down its TV station without acquisition of new buyer, the frequencies will be returned to MCMC (Malaysia Communications Multimedia Commission), so the broadcaster cannot get back money from any party. Regardless analogue or digital transmission, the most valuable things of disposal TV stations are broadcasting license, then the frequencies (for analog).
Because analogue TV will be closed down by March 2019 in Malaysia, if Media Prima chooses to dispose NTV7 and TV9 after ASO (may be in next 3 years), I think their disposal TV stations cannot be acquired by anyone because previously acquisition of a loss-making TV or radio stations by new company is just to buy the frequencies and licenses to launch new stations, plus TV will go digitally. Since NTV7 and TV9 are under Media Prima, when Media Prima chooses to dispose them, it can transfer all remain asset of NTV7 and TV9 to other source, for the staffs, Media Prima could lay off or transfer them to other department, or even TV3 and 8TV, known as "merging".
==Media Prima TV stations line-up 2019==
* TV3: Mass Malay
* NTV7: Chinese shopping TV (majority), Korean and Chinese rerun shows from 8TV
* 8TV: Mass Chinese
* TV9: Malay shopping TV (Majority), Indonesian and Malay rerun shows from TV3
==My analysis on Media Prima TV stations line-up post ASO and next 3 years==
* TV3: Mass Malay
* 8TV: Mass Chinese
* Drama Sangat: Malay dramas
* NTV7: <to be disposed if loss revenue although with Chinese CJ Wow Shop>
* TV9: <to be disposed if loss revenue>
Another possibility is Media Prima can merge NTV7 and TV9 into CJ Wow Shop in Malay and Mandarin, which makes bilingual shopping TV station.
People nowadays are far away different to people in the past, because of digital platform, people's taste are hugely changed.
Media Prima should have done away with ntv7 instead of re-branding it. I knew it was a d*ck move in its part.
ReplyDeleteNTV7 rebrand exercise was doomed to be a failure. Not only the rebrand bring confusion to both Chinese and Malay viewers, The rating wasn't good either due to the confusion. They should have launched a new channel for the Malay community and NTV7 as it is but it wasn't an option at that time, when plans for digital switchover at that time during they was planning this (on 2017) wasn't clear, which will bring limited viewership. I do think that they will launch at least 3 extra channels on top of the existing known 6 channels for extra viewership and revenue, which is one for Malay youths and one for kids audience. (likely name : Bananana! TV) One of them belongs to 24 hours Chinese CJ WOW SHOP. Media Prima's own content could be placed later on their OTT platform tonton anyway after premiere on TV (hosted on YouTube and Dailymotion) for catch up viewing, which is now free (ad supported).
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