productioninterview
Switch On, Century UU Entertainment Thailand
Formats: Thailand
Thailand
Singing contest 7%
Asian drama influences continue in Thailand, which is proving to be a fertile – if nascent – environment for scripted formats from Korea, Japan and China.
Drama Romance/comedy 13%
Reality - Modelling 7%
Reality - Dating 13%
When Switch On (Game Rak Salub Miti) – the Thai remake of Korean romantic/fantasy drama W – Two Worlds Apart) premieres on Friday, 19 November, Thailand takes another step beyond its predominantly homegrown stories and into a future of blended influences. The remake, which airs in a blocktime deal by Century UU Entertainment Thailand on free-TV network Channel 3, follows Thai versions of Korean,
Reality - Cooking 13% Game Show 47%
Chinese and Japanese dramas such as Bring It On, Ghost (CJ ENM, Korea), Mother (Nippon TV, Japan) and Put Your Head on My Shoulder (Tencent Video, China), among others. Produced by Century UU Entertainment, the Thai version of Switch On
Thailand’s formats breakdown by genre in 1H 2021. Source: ContentAsia’s Formats Outlook. Data gathered from rights holders & broadcasters in June/July 2021.
stars Aom Sushar Manaying (Yes or No, Bangkok Breaking) as Nisa, the surgical resident who gets entangled in a murder mystery after entering
game shows. 2021/2 titles include Project Runway Thailand, Korean
the virtual world of a webtoon called W, created by her father.
comedy/romance drama series Bring it On, Ghost and Let’s Eat, and
Gee Sutthirak Subvijitra (Classic Again) is cast as the video game character A-Kin, who is on a quest to avenge his father’s death. The original Korean series, aired on MBC in July-September 2016, stars Han Hyo Joo as Nisa and Lee Jong-suk is cast as the fictional character in a webtoon world called W. The series was produced by Chorokbaem Media (The Penthouse: War in Life, Memories of the Alhambra).
Japanese cooking competition Iron Chef. According to ContentAsia’s Formats Outlook for the first half of this year, Thailand aired/commissioned 15 formats – 21 titles less than we counted in the first six months of last year. This put Thailand in third place (behind India and Vietnam) among the 18 markets tracked for ContentAsia’s Formats Outlook.
The Thai remake switches things up by moving the setting from the
In the first half of 2021, game shows totally dominated Thailand’s
original webtoon comic world to a video game world, called Better
formats count with 47% of the total, followed by cooking, dating and
World. The rest of the storyline follows the original format.
drama (neck and neck at 13% each). The remaining 14% is split between
Switch On joins a host of Thai adaptations, generally dominated by
30
modelling and singing formats.
contentasia november 2021