productionindonesia
Plus size Indonesia’s feature films have made much more of an impact in the premium space than its TV series, which for years have been dominated by long-running local low-budget mass-market soap operas. Global and domestic streaming attention changed the game. Janine Stein looks at a market celebrating two of its biggest, most expensive TV series ever and what’s being done to secure a production ecosystem to support the demand for bigger, better and more. By many estimates, Indonesia will have premiered its two most expen-
proved from as way back as the iflix days, that Indonesian audiences
sive TV series by Christmas this year – Cigarette Girl (Gadis Kretek) by
overwhelmingly prefer local content. Some figures put local TV video
Base Entertainment for Netflix, which debuted on 2 November, fol-
entertainment consumption at three to four times higher than western
lowed by Tira, by Screenplay Films’ for Disney+ on 16 December.
TV content.
For Netflix, the bet seems to have paid off (ed’s note: we’re going
Cigarette Girl joins a handful of Indonesian feature films and one true-
by Netflix’s published top 10 rankings. We have no visibility on what the
crime documentary, made by the Singapore-based Beach House Pic-
platform’s internal criteria for success are). The period/romance drama,
tures, that made it onto Netflix’s global non-English top 10s in 2022/3.
with a guestimated budget of between US$250,000 and US$400,000 per
Titles include action movie The Raid 2 in January, and true-crime
episode – US$1.25 million-US$2 million for five episodes – is #1 at home
docu-series, Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso in Septem-
and the first Indonesian series ever with enough engagement to secure
ber/October 2023. The Raid 2 was viewed for a total of 8.62 million hours
a spot on the streamer’s global non-English TV top 10.
between 2-15 January 2023. Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica
In its debut week (6-12 November 2023), the show placed 10th with
Wongso spent two weeks on the non-English global TV series top 10,
8.6 million hours viewed (1.6 million views), holding the spot the follow-
with 6.8 million hours viewed from 25 September to 8 October 2023. It’s
ing week (13-19 November), albeit with slightly fewer hours/views. In its
a long way from 2018, when Indonesia wasn’t mentioned at all in Netf-
second week on the global charts, Gadis Kretek was on the top 10 lists
lix’s first showcase of 17 Asian original productions from Japan, Taiwan,
in eight countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela,
Thailand, India and Korea.
Chile, Costa Rica and Venezuela.
Long a thriving mass-market free-TV ‘sinetron’ market, Indonesia’s
At home, Gadis Kretek is holding fast against goliaths. Netflix doesn’t
ambitions for premium TV production are as old as streaming itself, even
disclose viewing/engagement data on a country level, but the story of
if Netflix didn’t seem to prioritise it at the time. The reasons may include
a woman who dreams of crafting the perfect cigarette is triumphing
the not-insignificant reality that Netflix was pretty much blocked in In-
against Korea’s Daily Dose of Sunshine, Strong Girl Nam-soon, Castaway
donesia from its launch in 2016 until the middle of 2020. The hard-won
Diva and Studio Dragon’s Doona!, starring A-lister Bae Suzy.
peace accord with the powerful state-owned Telkom Group included
Maybe this feat isn’t super-surprising. It has long been said, and
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censorship concessions as well as commercial arrangements.
contentasia december 2023