Thailand: High drama
Indonesia’s Kamila Andini on Cigarette Girl for Netflix
Plus Singapore’s short-form shifts, APAC streaming leaders & more
ContentAsia’s latest Formats Outlook shows Banijay Rights in the formats distribution lead in Asia by volume – albeit with far fewer titles – for the first nine months of this year.
Netflix’s Southeast Asia content director, Malobika Banerji, speaks about focus, vision & calculated risks as the streamer scales up in Southeast Asia.
Prime Video’s activity in Southeast Asia has so far been lower key than many hoped it might be. By all accounts, that’s about to end. Roll on 2024...
Netflix’s Cigarette Girl (Gadis Kretek) is an epic series that is as sprawling & ambitious as the hopes & dreams it carries for Indonesia’s filmmakers. Codirector Kamila Andini talks about a show that was on her wish list for more than a decade.
A teen gunman in Bangkok may have forced BEC World/Channel 3’s glitzy showcase off stage in a real-life October drama. But, even if the show didn’t go on that night, the party is far from over for Thailand’s storytellers, producers, commissioners and rights holders.
Warner Bros Discovery will launch streaming service, Max, in Asia sometime after the Paris Olympics in 2024. While the company clearly has rights, the question is whether these are the right rights to win in a region where the overwhelming appeal is local.
Singapore’s short-form filmmakers and platforms are taking a whole new look at domestic issues that would once have been considered taboo, challenging stereotypes and putting topics such as suicide, mental health, death, dying and homelessness front and centre of their work.
Content costs are out of control and pay-TV in Asia is “yet to be meaningfully disrupted”, Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) Vivek Couto says in his annual stateof-the-industry address.
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I was asked recently whether I thought a very large investment in a K-drama series in Korean with high-priced U.S. talent made sense. “Are you hoping for a U.S. audience?”, I asked, to be told: “Of course, and everywhere else”. Ah, I thought, not for the first time wishing I had a dollar for every time anyone told me they were making content for international audiences.
This outsize, sprawling, ambition to produce content for the ‘international market’ is divided into a few groups. One group means: Sell to the U.S. The other group means: Sell for a lot of money to a global streamer, which will take it to the U.S. And there’s nothing wrong with either of those, except they might actually die trying. There’s a third group that’s more practical, but that wasn’t the question. Not even Netflix or Prime Video say they are targeting international audiences. They may hope, but they both prioritise deeply local domestic stories and say, if these are made well enough, they will resonate elsewhere.
“Ask yourself this,” I replied. “How many Korean dramas have actually enjoyed the kind of success you will need – in the U.S./‘international’ – to justify your investment?” Squid Game was on the U.S. top 10 for 11 weeks in 2021. All of Us Are Dead was on the U.S. top 10 for five weeks in 2022. That’s two in three years. We’re not talking about adapting Korean IP for American audiences. There have been more than a few successful adaptations. The Good Doctor Masked Singer, although by now everyone knows it was Workpoint TV’s Thai version of that caught the eye of EP Craig Plestis and not MBC’s original. I Can See Your Voice is another one.
K-drama had me at Jewel in the Palace/Dae Jang Geum in 2003, and it hasn’t been difficult at all to roll around in the K-echochamber, fuelled by the well-oiled K-publicity machine. And there’s nothing wrong that; I like it there, as it happens. Yet the data – or at least the data I have access to – tells a different story.
Thanks to Netflix (and who does K-drama better on this scale and is confident enough to disclose performance data?), it’s easy to find out how popular titles are compared to how popular publicists are paid to tell us they are. And the answer is: U.S. audiences watch enough foreign TV a week to put one, two at the most, series on their top 10. And most often, that foreign title is not Korean (or even Asian). Often the U.S. is MIA on non-English-language TV rankings.
The breakdown of non-English titles on Netflix’s U.S. top 10 for this year is (Asian titles are marked in red below): 25 Sept -1 Oct: Dear Child. Nothing from Asia. Or at least none that I found on Netflix’s lists. 18-24 Sept: Dear Child 11-17 Sept: Dear Child, Thursday’s Widows 4-10 Sept: Dear Child 28 Aug-3 Sept: Ragnarok S3. 21-27 Aug: The Chosen One, Ragnarok S3. 14-20 Aug: The Chosen One. 7-13 Aug: zero. 31 July-6 Aug: A Perfect Story 24-30 July: Baki Hanma S2. 17-23 July: zero. 10-16 July: nothing. 3-9 July: zip. 26 June-2 July: nada. 19-25 June: The Surrogacy, Sleeping Dog. 12-18 June: Bloodhounds, The Surrogacy. 5-11 June: Fake Profile. 29 May-4 June: Fake Profile. 22-28 May: zero. 15-21 May: Muted, La Reina del Sur. 8-14 May: nothing. 1-7 May: more nothing. 24-30 April: Rough Diamonds, The Nurse. 17-23 April: The Marked Heart S2. 10-16 April: zero. 3-9 April: zero too. 27 March-2 April: Who Were We Running From 20-26 March: The Glory, Who Were We Running From 13-19 March: The Glory 6-12 March: The Glory, Wrong Side of the Tracks. 27 Feb-5 March: Triptych, Wrong Side of the Tracks. 20-26 Feb: Triptych, Physical 100. 13-19 Feb: Physical 100. 6-12 Feb: Physical 100 30 Jan-5 Feb: The Snow Girl, Physical 100 23-29 Jan: Women at War 16-22 Jan: zero. 9-15 Jan: Zero. 2-8 Jan: nothing.
And there you have it: Exactly three Asian titles have appeared on the U.S. non-English language top 10 TV list this year so far. Clearly, Korean content is a tough sell in the world’s richest market. Is the risk on a K-drama targeting the U.S. worth taking? I would say, based on what I know today, no.
ContentAsia’s latest Formats Outlook shows Banijay Rights in the formats distribution lead in Asia by volume – albeit with far fewer titles – for the first nine months of this year.
Asia had at least 145 adaptations commissioned/under way or on air the first nine months of this year, according to ContentAsia’s latest Formats Outlook.
Banijay Rights leads distributor rankings with 30 titles (21% share) from January to September 2023. Banijay topped January-December 2022 format distribution charts as well, with 47 titles for the full year.
India has been Banijay’s strongest formats market by volume this year so far, with nine titles commissioned/on air to end September. These include multiple versions of Big Brother, including Big Brother Marathi S4, Big Brother Tamil S6 and Big Brother Hindi S16 (aka Bigg Boss Hindi).
Of Banijay’s 30 formats, seven were game shows, including Puzzle Masters China S6 and Lego Masters Japan S1; seven cooking shows, all remakes of MasterChef (two each from Indonesia and Myanmar, one each from India, Thailand and Singapore); and six singing formats, including All Together Now Malaysia S2, Killer Karaoke Mongolia S1, Your Face Sounds Familiar Vietnam S9/Kids S5, and Don’t Forget The Lyrics Myanmar S1.
ITV Studios accounted for 19 (13%) of the total 145 formats, with 14 singing-related formats, including 13 versions/seasons of The Voice (three each from Nepal and Sri Lanka, two each from the Philippines, Mongolia and Vietnam, and one each from Japan and Cambodia). Mongolia
was ITV Studios’ strongest market with four titles, followed by Nepal (3), Sri Lanka (3) and Vietnam (3).
Fremantle had 14 (10%), including five talent show formats and five game shows. The rest were three singing-based formats and one dating show – the Thai remake of Take Me Out Thailand S18 on BEC World’s Channel 3.
CJ ENM Korea accounted for 11 (8%) titles – five commissioned in Thailand, two each in India and the Philippines, and one each in Malaysia and Japan. Five of the 14 titles were drama, including season two of Duranga, the Indian remake of Korea’s 2018 crime thriller, Flower of Evil, and Keys to The Heart, the Philippines adaptation of the 2018 Korean film.
NBCUniversal reported nine titles, BBC Studios and KBS Media had seven each, All3Media International and Workpoint Thailand had five each, and Paramount Global Content Distribution and Warner Bros Discovery reported four titles each.
PATERSON JOSEPH DAISY HAGGARD TCHÉKY KARYO
Indonesia’s filmmakers. Co-director Kamila Andini talks about a show she had on her wish list for more than a decade.
November 2 can’t come fast enough for Kamila Andini, the Indonesian co-director of period drama, Cigarette Girl. A project more than three years in the making and hovering on her wish list for years and years before that, the Netflix original drama series, now less than a month away from its premiere, carries with it the hopes, dreams and ambitions not only of its creators, but also of an entire creative Industry that has Korea-style global stardom in its sights but knows how tough it is going to be to get there.
Based on Ratih Kumala’s 2012 novel, Cigarette Girl (aka Gadis Kretek) stars Dian Sastrowardoyo (Sri Asih) as Dasiyah, a woman ahead of her time who is passionate about the perfect formula for clove cigarettes. Decades after her encounter with Soeraja, played by Ario Bayu (The Bridge), Soeraja’s son Lebas (Arya Saloka), meets Arum (Putri Marino), and together they trace the past and uncover buried secrets.
Helmed by Kamila Andini (The Mirror Never Lies) and Ifa Isfansyah (Before, Now & Then), the series is produced by Base Entertainment with showrunners Shanty Harmayn and Tanya Yuson. Ratih Kumala and Tanya Yuson also served as screenwriters along with Kanya K. Priyanti and Ambaridzki Ramadhantyo.
We spoke to Andini during the ContentAsia Summit at the end of August as the first trailer for the series was released...
Why did you choose Gadis Kretek and what does this project mean to you? “It’s quite a long story actually. The story came to us – me and my co-director, who is also my husband, Ifa Isfansyah. Ifa was so in love with the novel. It’s one of the novels that we kept talking about. He had this big passion to make it into a film, and gave it to many producers over the years. But this is a story that starts in two periods of time with so many characters, set against a backdrop of the clove industry, which is the biggest industry in Indonesia, and also the backdrop of our political situation, with romance and drama. So everything is there basically. But it was so hard for us to find anyone who wanted to make this. It’s a big canvas and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy to find money for it. So for many years it just lay there. One day, Ifa gave the novel to Shanty and Tanya [from Base Entertainment] and they loved it. So they came to Ifa and asked if we want to make it into a series. We were like ‘really, it’s happening after so many years?’?
“Shanty and Tanya asked me to co-direct it with Ifa. We’ve never worked together as directors before. He’s always been my producer
Netflix’s Cigarette Girl (Gadis Kretek) is an epic series that is as sprawling & ambitious as the hopes & dreams it carries forDian Sastrowardoyo as Dasiyah in Cigarette Girl, Netflix Kamila Andini
for my movies. So, this story is our first time directing together. We were quite excited but nervous. But this is a story that’s been in us for many years and we just wanted to see the characters come alive... and here we are.”
How is this different from anything/everything you’ve done before? “I always see my work as my own child and every child is very different from the others. I’m sort of reborn each time I do something. Cigarette Girl speaks to me and about me, and Ifa as well, at this time and it reflects us at this certain time and context. We are like new again after making this as a creator and it’s been amazing.”
Do you have a favourite scene from Cigarette Girl? “A lot, it’s a bit hard because I have to answer without spoiling. There are a lot of heartbreaking, but also beautiful, revelation moments in this series. Something about secrets of the past and also the passion and the romance... The series is set back-to-back in two time periods. So I love every time both of the periods connect, even though they never actually meet. That’s actually what is beautiful about the series... that connection within time without actually meeting is actually very beautiful.”
How long do you like to spend in rehearsals with talent before shooting?
“As long as I can, it depends how many months I can do. Perhaps, if I am given a year, I will do it for a year. But it’s very different in each of the stories, and it’s also very different in each of the characters. Every director has their own approach and every actor also has their own approach and prepping with them, it’s always been a magical time for me because we get to know each other and how we are going to shape this, in each of our differences and preferences. So for me, there are charac-
ters that I think can be very intense sometimes because maybe also the character could be 100 degrees different than their real character.”
How involved do you, as a director, get in script writing?
“I’m a writer/director, so I have always been involved in everything and creating the story together story wise and visually. So I’m used to creating the visuals during the development, the writing and the treatment. In Gadis Kretek, Base Entertainment already has a team of writers, headed by Tanya at that time and [the novel’s author] Ratih, who was one of the writers in the writers room. I like to get involved in terms of visual treatment during the development. Tanya and Shanty gave me room for that. gave us the script quite early and asked me and Ifa for ideas about the characters and how we want to shape them... we were involved in the script writing as well. For me, I got the time to talk with the team, the actors... and also to start thinking since early stages”.
I always see my work as my own child and every child is very different from the others.
I’m sort of reborn each time I do something.”
Kamila Andini
Co-director, Cigarette Girl (Gadis Kretek)
Netflix continues to scale up in Southeast Asia, adding Indonesian director Kamila Andini’s TV series, Cigarette Girl, which premieres on 2 November, to Sitisiri (Dome) Mongkolsiri’s Hunger – the #1 film on the global non-English movie top 10 earlier this year – and Timo Tjahjanto’s 2022 chart topper – action-comedy blockbuster, The Big 4 – to name the top few. Originals from Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines are expected to flow freely in 2024.
Almost eight years after Netflix launched in Southeast Asia, Malobika Banerji, the streamer’s director of content for the region, talks about the quest to put Southeast Asian content on an entertainment map dominated by Korea and Hollywood.
“As a Southeast Asia local content team, one of the things we have been focused on is figuring out if our members will embrace local content in similar fashion [to Korea and Hollywood] if we programme a great variety and quality of them. We are very happy to see that our efforts are already bearing fruit,” she says.
Original titles are top 10 regulars in their home countries, and licensed films, such as Marla Ancheta’s Doll House (2022) and Seasons (2023) from the Philippines and Indonesia’s Photocopier (2021), have been well received.
All the original titles have been on the top 10 lists in their home countries for a few weeks at least. “So that’s a big testament,” she says.
Doll House, starring Baron Geisler as a man who takes on the job of caring for a little girl, the daughter he left behind years ago, was on Netflix’s global nonEnglish top 10 for two weeks last year and was a top 10 non-English film in 11 countries for at least a week. Seasons, starring Lovi Poe, went one better, staying on the top 10 globally for three weeks, although it was only on the top 10 in seven countries. Wregas Bhanuteja’s Indonesian thriller, Photocopier, did even better, spending three weeks on the global top 10 non-English films, and earning a place on the top 10 in 26 countries.
“We feel confident that we are on the right path and we will continue investing in both licensing and commissioned projects,” Banerji told delegates at the 2023 ContentAsia Summit.
At the same time, she emphasises that these are early days of local programming. “We are testing and learning as we go. At this point in time, we are programming across a wide range of genres and formats, trying to really get a sense of what members want to watch on Netflix,” she says.
For example, in Thailand, films like The Murderer and Hunger, and series like Delete, sit alongside the latest theatrical releases, with some linear TV programming as well as unscripted titles. “So it’s really a full range... we are trying to get a sense of what resonates with audiences,” she says.
There’s some risk involved. But, Banerji says, “we are taking those bets... trying different things.” Before Hunger, “we absolutely did not have any signal or idea that our members would connect with a strong character drama”. The film premiered on 6 April 2023, making #2 on the non-English global top 10 films for the week of 3-9 April with 11.23 million hours viewed and a place on the top 10 films in 43 countries. The following week, Hunger was at #1 with 43.6 million hours viewed and on the top 10 films list in 91 countries, including the U.S.
Similarly, in Indonesia, Timo Tjahjanto’s The Big 4 was the horror/action director’s first foray into action comedy. “This was the first time he was trying
something new,” she adds. “We felt that the material was compelling enough for us to give it a try and see how it resonates with audiences. And we were very happy to see that his base actually expanded beyond his core action and horror fans.”
“Making content is always a risk... The only thing we can do is to make sure that we understand what we are trying to make and the people who are trying to make it, whether they have the ability to pull it off,” Banerji says.
The success of The Big 4, for instance, was by no means a foregone conclusion. “It was not that when we saw it, we knew it would be a hit. To be honest, internally we knew it would be 50/50.... Because core Timo fans might be disappointed that this is not hardcore action, and then comedy fans will be like, ‘why is there action here?’. So it was a risk. But when we looked at the material overall and we saw Timo’s passion for the project, it was clear that it was a bet worth trying. If it didn’t work out, okay, we would then know that he had a niche audience and he should stick to that.”
“If we don’t try new things, we don’t learn, right? And I think the best part of our journey in Southeast Asia has been that as much as we are trying new things, the audience is also trying to open up to this experimentation. They are also giving it a try. Otherwise people may not have watched Hunger the way they did, right? So that’s very heartening to see.”
Wisit Sasanatieng dark comedy, The Murderer, is another example. “People love movies from the Isan region in Thailand, and we have been seeing that for a while,” Banerji says. The Murderer script, with its blend of murder mystery, dark comedy and highly stylised visuals, was different from the regular simple Isan rural comedies. The question, then, was whether the same audiences would be willing to open up to something different. The Murderer topped the Thai film list for two weeks from 24 July to 6 August this year, and stayed on the top 10 in the country for three weeks although, according to Netflix’s published rankings, doesn’t seem to have made an international impact.
Banerji says the response was something of a surprise. “It’s heartening to see that, ok, if we try something, people are willing to give it a chance. The only thing we can do is make the best version of any bet we are taking and then just leave it to the audiences to tell us.”
In a production universe obsessed with ‘being international’, Netflix’s priority is local. “Our local language strategy is local for local,” she says. ”We want to make sure that whatever local titles we make resonate with our members in that country in the biggest way possible... a hit in the home country is the biggest win for us.”
“As a content executive, my aspiration is that every title is seen by the world. That’s why we are making content. But we know from history that there is only a handful of titles that break out in that way. What we have learned from those is that if it is authentically local [and well-made], there is a big chance that it will find audiences outside,” she says.
New TV series include the eight-episode Thai drama, Delete, about two lovers in an extramarital affair who plot a new life together after finding a phone that can erase other people. The series, co-written and directed by Parkpoom Wongpoom (Alone), released on 28 June and spent two weeks on the global non-English TV top 10. The series was on the top 10 TV lists in 29 countries. Banerji points to Wongpoom’s reputation for horror/thrillers. “He’s done a bit of genre blending in this series, so that was a risk for us,” she says.
The Southeast Asia team is making similar bets in television as it has in movies. “We are taking risks with both movies and television. Because series have a longer lead time, in our first slate you see mostly films.” TV titles that have been in the works for the last two years release in 2024.
At the end of the day though, the format is secondary. “What’s really important is that it’s the best format to tell the story, whether it’s a series or film... It’s not trying to be differentiated for the sake of being differentiated, there is a real vision and a story that the storyteller wants to tell... So that’s what we are focused on.”
A teen gunman in Bangkok may have forced BEC World/Channel 3’s glitzy live showcase off stage in an early-October real-life drama. But, even if the show didn’t go on that night, the party is far from over for Thailand’s storytellers, producers, commissioners and rights holders.
Anticipation was running high at BEC World on Tuesday, 3 October. The Thai broadcaster, enjoying extended moments in the global spotlight as its well-oiled production machinery delivers a steady stream of good-looking stars and story lines, was preparing to showcase the 13 dramas that will lead the schedule and international sales for the rest of 2023 and 2024. Talent and fans had already begun gathering for the two-and-a-half-hour live extravaganza in Bangkok. Inside the hall, final rehearsals were wrapping and talent was counting down to curtain up. The station’s senior executives were either already there or on their way. Everything was on schedule, which was, perhaps, the most unusual thing about the afternoon in a city where traffic can upend the bestlaid plans. Until a lone 14-year-old gunman, opening fire in the crowded Siam Paragon mall, brought the evening’s events to a screeching halt. Chaos ensued as the area was evacuated, police neutralised the shooter, and shocked guests, shoppers and bystanders were sent home in the pouring rain.
While the active shooter drama forced BEC World off stage for the night, for Thai content, the party is far far from over.
Thai IP leads series pickups and streamer attention in Southeast Asia at the moment. This is as much for its production infrastructure, rising values and volume, as for local broadcasters’, platforms’ and producers’ determination to expand stories and storytelling skills to serve broader regional – and hopefully international – audiences.
The initiative is wide ranging, including tapping into Asian and international scripted formats. Korean scripted IP continues to be adapted into Thai series by Korean/Thai joint venture, True CJ Creations, joined by Ben Lai’s Yam Cultural, which is adapting mainland Chinese IP into Thai dramas. In the past few years, titles such as Turkish drama Eternal the U.K.’s Doctor Foster and Japan’s Mother, among others, have been adapted for domestic audiences.
Quite apart from producing in Thai, rights holders in the country have proved to be willing to experiment with windows and distribution in a bid to figure out what best suits a combo streaming/broadcast/online universe at home, in the region, and elsewhere.
The day before BEC was forced to abort its glitzy multi-million dollar showcase, Prime Video, in a star-studded event of its own in Bangkok, unveiled a multi-genre slate of Thai acquisitions for a 13-week content campaign. The “unbox Thai entertainment” campaign, which runs from 5 October to the end of December this year, is by far the streamer’s biggest in Thailand to date.
At the same time, Prime Video said that more than 70 new Hollywood and other titles slated for launch in the first quarter of 2024 would be available with Thai dubbing and subtitles, all part of a refreshed effort to woo Thai audiences.
Together, BEC World and Prime Video put 26 coming-soon Thai titles in the spotlight in the same week.
If things go according to plan, this could be the dawn of a new era for Prime Video in Thailand. The October campaign followed the 31 August premiere of original series, Comedy Island Thailand. Prime Video does not release performance data, but says, amid mixed consumer and industry reviews, that it is happy with the engagement.
There’s also the expectation of glory days to come under the newly installed Gaurav Gandhi/Aparna Purohit leadership team, with Darin Darakananda heading originals for Thailand. Gandhi, Amazon Prime’s APAC VP, and Purohit, India/Southeast Asia head of originals, are credited with Prime Video’s success in India, where the platform commands a 21% share of the country’s US$1.7 billion premium video on demand revenues (including SVOD & premium AVOD), according to Media Partners Asia (MPA).
At the very least, for now, Prime Video says the Thai acquisitions reinforce its commitment to local content investment. Prime Video Southeast Asia’s content acquisition senior manager, Chaitanya Divan, calls the latest Thai slate “a significant milestone in the history of Prime Video in Thailand” and “a testament of our commitment to the creative community”.
So far, Amazon hasn’t disclosed anything about the Thai originals that will come after Comedy Island, which was commissioned under the previous content regime led by Erika North. There’s also no word on a renewal.
What we do know is that Prime Video is determined to skirt the sameold. Speaking during the ContentAsia Summit at the end of August, Darakananda said the platform was “looking for content that’s distinct”, a category she described as “content plus”.
“So whatever genre we’re working on, like romance or horror, it should be romance plus, horror plus... it has to have that X factor, where it feels familiar, where the Thai audience would be like, ‘I’ve kind of seen this before, but there’s an interesting twist that I haven’t seen anywhere else’,” she said.
The quest, of course, is to boost subscription. “Thai audiences are so incredibly savvy. If you just churn out a regular romcom, they’re going to know exactly what is going to happen. But what will get them to become a Prime subscriber? What will get them to become part of the Prime family is, ‘oh, this is something with a little nuance that is so interesting, that I haven’t seen anywhere else’. So that’s the thing that we look for. And that’s always really hard to put your finger on. But once you read a concept and you’re like, wow, I haven’t really seen this anywhere else... that’s the Prime brand.”
Prime Video’s acquisitions team received and read the same memo.
Included in the new slate are the first the two series produced by the new BEC Studio, set up in 2021 as an independent studio separate from BEC World’s domestic commissioning team focused on local stories for free-TV network Channel 3.
BEC Studio’s sole remit, under president Apicha Honghirunruang, is to create Thai content for the international market, which means figuring out, first and foremost, what global and regional streaming platforms want.
So far, Honghirunruang seems to be getting the Southeast Asia piece right. His first two titles –The Office Games and My Undercover Chef – will stream on Prime Video in Thailand and across neighbouring countries. The Office Games, starring Chalida Vijitvongtong and Chanon Santinatornkul as ordinary office workers who struggle to cope with life’s vicissitudes, will stream on 16 November. Also 16-episodes, My Undercover Chef, stars Chantavit Dhanasevi as a detective who goes undercover as a sous-chef. The series premieres on Prime Video in Southeast Asia on 21 December.
The deal with Amazon signals a major shift for BEC Studio’s listed parent company, which has had to get its head around a regional business after decades of deeply domestic free-to-air focus. This is the first time ever that BEC-linked originals will stream in Thailand ahead of their broadcast date on BEC’s free-TV service, Channel 3.
Honghirunruang, who previously ran joint-venture Thai/Korean production house, True CJ Creations, says the Studio’s titles were created from scratch to address universal themes, with an international look and feel. “The market is open. So now we have to grab the opportunity... do something that may not be similar to anything else in the market right now,” he insists.
For Prime Video, the latest acquisitions push the envelope in terms of size and genre... and perhaps spend, although budgets have not been disclosed. Broadly, Prime Video’s acquisitions budget is level with Netflix’s with a premium of perhaps 10% for exclusivity.
The first Thai title to stream in Thailand/Southeast Asia as part of the new Prime Video deal was director Lee Thongkham’s (The Maid) girls-with-weapons action comedy, Kitty The Killer, which kicked off the campaign on Thursday (5 October). The 2023 film, which premiered in June at the New York Asian Film Festival, stars Ploypailin Thangprapaporn and Somchai Kemglad in the story of a band of female assassins who hide in plain sight until they are summoned by a secret clan of men called the Guardians.
Six of Prime Video’s new titles – four films and two series – will be available to Prime
Video audiences globally. The four films are life-after-death comedy Ghost Rookie (19 October), Ranee Campen starrer Congrats My Ex (23 November), village adventure 3 Idiot Heroes (30 November), and The Adventures of Rung (28 December). The two series are 10-episode crypto-drama, Coin Digger (2 November), and supernatural series, Curse Code (7 December).
Three concerts are part of the Prime Video campaign, kicking off with PP Krit – Lit & Glitter The First Fan Meeting concert recorded live in March 2023, and followed by Grammy x RS: Hit 100 Concert and Grammy x RS: 2K Celebration Concert, which will stream in Thailand only. The PP Krit Lit & Glitter will stream in Southeast Asia.
For BEC World, the new slate that was to have been unveiled on that fateful night in Bangkok milks the country’s quest for love and penchant for romcoms, and leverages proven blockbuster properties.
Leading the list of new dramas is the long-awaited sequel to 2018 romcom, Love Destiny, which was followed by blockbuster movie, Love Destiny: The Movie, last year.
Picking up from where season one left off, the 26-episode Love Destiny 2 (พรหมลิขิต / Prom Likit) stars Ranee Campen as Pudtarn, a confident modern woman who opens an ancient chest and is magically transported to a different time and place. There she meets and eventually falls in love with Rid, played by heartthrob Thanavat (Pope) Vatthanaputi. Love Destiny 2 premieres on Channel 3 in Thailand on 18 October, with simultaneous streaming releases.
Another return is five-part romance anthology, Dhevaprom, the sequel to 2013 blockbuster, The Gentlemen of Jutathep. Scheduled for early 2024, Dhevaprom features five women whose lives and histories are intertwined with the noble Jutathep male heirs. The complete anthology runs to 73 episodes, mixing romance, action and fantasy set in the 1960s, when marrying well was still considered essential for the last
line of nobility. Two of the series are made by Good Feeling, and the other three are from Maker Y, Metta & Mahaniyom and Act Art Generation.
Among the brand new titles for 2024 are Mario Maurer starrer, Kissed by the Rain, and Never Enough from Bad Romeo director and ContentAsia Awards 2023 best director, Ampaiporn Jitmaingong. Starring James Jirayu, Bow Maylada and Ice Paris, the coming-of-age series is a friends-to-lovers tale with a promised triangle twist.
If BEC World is ahead in putting Thai drama in front of audiences in Southeast Asia/China, globally, Netflix has drawn ahead in putting Thai films and series on the global map.
Sitisiri (Dome) Mongkolsiri’s Hunger in April was followed in September with 6ixtynin9 The Series, an adaptation of Thailand’s Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s 1999 movie The six-episode series was one of Netflix’s top 10 nonEnglish-language shows for the week of 4-10 September 2023, debuting on the chart at #8 with 6.5 million hours viewed and 1.4 million views. Written/directed by Ratanaruang, 6ixtynin9 The Series stars Mai-Davika Hoorne (Pee Mak) as Toom, who loses her job during the pandemic. A box filled with cash mistakenly delivered to her doorstep sets off a chain of ill-fated encounters.
Hunger, which was on Netflix’s top 10 for six weeks earlier this year, was a milestone for Thai drama. “Hunger changed the perception by showing that a strong character drama set in Thailand can travel,” says Netflix content director for Southeast Asia, Malobika Banerji.
Thai coming-of-age feature film, GDH’s You & Me & Me, also popped on Netflix’s top 10 global non-English films. Released theatrically in February this year, You & Me & Me is about identical twin sisters who share everything – until a boy walks into their lives and puts their bond to the test. The film was viewed for 1.38 million hours around the world, giving it 8th spot on the list for the week of 8-14 May.
At the same time, two of BEC/Ch3’s tentpoles – season Love Destiny and The Betrayal, the local version of BBC Studio’s Doctor Foster – top Thai rankings on Netflix and, anecdotally, on regional streamer Viu, which boasts its own list of Thai originals, including and Finding the Rainbow
BEC Studio’s Honghirunruang highlights a rising flexibility that runs alongside the bid for a regional/international business. “We have to understand which platform wants what kind of content, how many episodes, the genres, the gaps, the trends... we need to listen to the audience. That’s the most important part”.
As Thai storytellers look outwards, the fiveyear-old Bangkok-based Thai-Korean joint venture, True CJ Creations, remains committed to bringing Korean IP home, in cinematic quality, primarily for the True platform with additional distribution on Netflix. Successes so far are led by Voice and, more recently, Bad . New projects are led by a Thai adaptation of KBS drama, Good Doctor, which is currently in post-production.
Co-CEO, Ari Arijitsatien, says the most important learning about the meeting point between Korea and Thailand remains interpreting and bridging cultural differences. She notes a newfound Covid-driven willingness by film directors to play in the TV space. “This,” she says, “shifted the way of production in Thailand”.
Pattarasaya Kreuasuwansri plays Faglai in Ghost Rookie
When Darin Darakananda took to the stage at the ContentAsia Summit in Bangkok this year, she was 100% focused on the pending global premier of Prime Video original, Comedy Island Thailand, at the end of August. As Prime Video’s head of Thai content, she talked about pushing the creative envelope, being brave enough to try new things, and the ‘plus’ factor essential in every pitch.
A month later, at Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) confer ence in Bali at the end of September, the streamer’s new-ishly installed Southeast Asia leadership spoke about being more than an SVOD platform, about chan nels and aggregation, differentiators and partnerships.
But still, other than Comedy Island Philippines and Indonesia, details are thin if non-existent. Total quiet so far on the Southeast Asia projects an
nounced in another life (circa July 2022), including Sal Kim’s Wattpadbased Three Idiots and A Ghost with Jungka Bangkok in Thailand; scripted series Metal Casket from writer/director Banjong Pisanthanakun, and How to Fake It in Bangkok from Halo Productions with actor Ananda Everingham (The Betrayal) executive producing.
There has been a lot more activity on the acquisitions front, including the 13 titles announced this month (see page 18). A year ago, Prime Video acquired Korean director Bae Jong’s fantasy action series, , for its global platform (ex Korea). Island followed the acquisitions of Korean romantic comedy, Love in Contract. Licensing will continue to be a major part of the offering, says Southeast Asia director David Simonsen, who joined Prime Video in mid-2022 after a long career at HBO Asia.
So it’s not like nothing has been happening in Southeast Asia. But on the whole, he activity has just been lower-key than many had hoped it would be by now. And the reason is... on Prime Video’s calendar, it’s only been a year.
Simonsen counts the platform’s wins over the past 12 months, led by establishing the regional team in Singapore. He describes this as “a big win in year one”. With the regional infrastructure that has come online in the last six months, “we’ve touched millions of customers across the region. We’re learning a lot all the time about
Prime Video’s activity in Southeast Asia has so far been lower key than many hoped it might be. By all accounts, that’s about to end. Roll on 2024...Comedy
We are more than just a SVOD service. We are an entertainment hub.”
Gaurav Gandhi, VP APAC, Prime Video
our engagement strategies and acquisition strategies... we’re happy with that growth,” he said at APOS.
Product infrastructure issues, including payments, which “took us a while”, were in place in Q2 this year and “has made a big impact on the business”. In short, he says, 2023 will go down as a “foundational year”.
“We’re just getting started,” says Gaurav Gandhi, who shifted to Singapore this year after his April promotion to vice president for the Asia Pacific. He’s bringing with him Prime Video India veteran, Aparna Purohit, as head of originals for Southeast Asia, a role she holds in addition to her India responsibilities.
Over the past seven and a half years in India, Purohit is credited with building Prime Video India originals from the ground up, including The Family Man, Mirzapur, Farzi, Inside Edge, Made in Heaven, Mumbai Diaries, Rohit Shetty’s action drama Indian Police Force, factual series Dancing on the Grave, Sons of the Soil: Jaipur Pink Panthers, Mind the Malhotras, Four More Shots Please... plus bigger ambitions for original movies.
In India today, Prime Video has a 21% share of the country’s US$1.7 billion premium VOD revenues, level with JioCinema and one point behind the troubled Disney+ Hotstar, according to MPA.
Industry talk is that others from Gandhi’s India dream team will follow him to Singapore, maybe with dual roles, like Purohit, maybe not. That’s one to watch...
In the meantime, Purohit talks about “creating cultural moments”, characters that become part of the zeitgeist, about creative investment and marketing muscle. “Developing original content takes time, and requires enormous creative investment, and we don’t shy away from any of that,” she says. The strategy in Southeast Asia is, as it is everywhere, to build “very authentic, rooted stories”, recognising and respecting nuances in each market.
“We cannot talk about a video streaming business without talking about the quality of the content. That’s the starting point,” Gandhi adds.
He also talks about aggregated businesses in Japan and India that include channels, TVOD, being the home of anime and sports, moving
consumers from basic pay-TV to SVOD, the hunt for gaps into which Amazon can step, creating categories “where we believe there’s an opportunity” such as rentals in India, and – a favourite of his –broadening linguistic palettes.
The strategy will be different in each market. In Japan, for example, Amazon/Prime Video offers about 60 services, with major anime players, sports properties and rights owners, local broadcasters and platforms, including Fuji TV On Demand.
Gandhi says the Japanese platform offers more than 300,000 titles with 100 plus partners. In India, we have “a more curated strategy” on TVOD designed to build the category. He seems happy with the result. “Almost 90% of the catalogue is rented at least once every month,” he says.
TVOD channels are on their way to Southeast Asia. “The way we think about this is that we are going to be a great enabler for the category overall for our partners for the region,” he says.
“We always start with what the customer really needs and understanding that requirement and then looking at whitespaces around it,” he says, adding: “We are very clear about building the most loved entertainment service for our customers in each territory”.
There’s more. “We also are very clear that we are more than just a SVOD service. We are an entertainment hub for our customers”. That means, among other things, bringing channels and TVOD to this part of the world as part of broader industry partnerships. “That’s a big differentiator for us,” Gandhi says.
Simonsen says a focus is “to get more out of what we already have and what we’re producing everywhere”. Questions the team is asking: How do we get more out of what we’re producing in India? In Japan? Simonsen says that “APAC flywheel is really critical for us and we’re seeing some exciting response”.
When will all of this emerge in Southeast Asia? Purohit promises a robust development slate in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. But still no details or timetable yet. As Simonsen stressed, it’s only been a year. We will, of course, stay tuned.
Warner Bros Discovery will launch Max in some parts of Asia in 2024/5, after the Paris Summer Olympics. While the company clearly has rights, the question is whether these are the right rights to win in a region where the overwhelming appeal is local, they’re late, and the fight is fierce.
Warner Bros Discovery’s streaming boss J.B. Perrette wants Max up and running in Asia (ex Japan and India, where cold hard rights acquisitions’ cash trumped streaming ambitions) after the Paris Olympics in Summer 2024, after Latam in the first quarter and Europe before the Olympics. “Asia continues to be critically important but we have to [roll out Max] in that sequence. We’ll get to Asia before the end of next year with our existing markets and then we’ll move on to new markets again, starting in 2025,” Perrette said in a session at Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) APOS event at the end of September.
There’s no question WBD has the rights and the franchises to launch; Game of Thrones, Succession, The White Lotus, Euphoria, Friends, The Big Bang Theory... and Barbie
What Perrette, WBD CEO and president, global streaming and games, didn’t address on stage in Bali that Wednesday was the bigger question: Are these the right rights to win in Asia, where local content has already proved to be a deal breaker for subscribers? If they aren’t, how fast can the programming/production team resuscitate HBO’s Asia originals ambitions formerly known as gung-ho? And/or, how quickly can the team muscle its way back into the furiously competitive acquisitions race? What he did say was that WBD may look for “clever ways to partner with local players... not just invest entirely ourselves, but there may be creative ways to partner with existing local players”.
Details of Max programming plans in Asia, led by former iflix/HBO Max exec Jason Monteiro, have not been made public, and we have no reliable visibility on what the Max Asia development slate looks like. There’s talk that Korean acquisition/s is in the works; it’s not a huge leap of faith to believe this to be true. It’s also not clear yet whether Monteiro will be building his own stand-alone streaming team. Even if he does, Perrette was clear about leveraging WBD’s long-established, deeply traditional resources/relationships/networks – now under the newly promoted James Gibbons – in the region to roll out Max.
In Asia, WBD still operates the old HBO Go streaming service, which will be re-platformed as Max. The traditional business also includes linear channels widely distributed on platforms in a region where pay-TV hasn’t been disrupted in the same way as in other parts of the world. Platform bosses in Asia mostly like and rate HBO, which remains part of
their premium offerings even if they’re not paying the premium they used to.
Now wholly charged with streaming, Monteiro joined HBO/Max SE Asia in Jan 2022. Six months later, he joined Schwebig’s team as head of integrated marketing (including creative services) across the region and all lines of business. In early Sept 2023, the APAC streaming business was put squarely under him, sloughing off marketing and creative services activities in favour of a single-minded focus on streaming. Monteiro reports directly to Perrette.
Meanwhile, the Asia team is settling into the latest re-org that puts Discovery lifer James Gibbons in charge of a united APAC. In addition to his previous responsibility for Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Gibbons takes over the territories – the awkwardly dubbed INSEAK region – that used to be under Clement Schwebig, who exits for a role in charge of Western Europe and Africa. Gibbons was appointed president/MD of Japan, Aus/NZ in April 2022. He shifted to Singapore this year. If there was an overwhelming response to the latest changes from the changebattered rank and file, it was that they no longer have to say INSEAK to talk about a geographic unit that comprises India, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea.
At APOS, held just ahead of the latest reorg/s, Perrette described the past decade as one of “great oversupply and great underpricing”. He talked about “a period of rationalisation” and said “the great reaggregation is well underway”. This aggregation, he added, “is both structural, with consolidation… and then there’s re-aggregation in the re-bundling”. He also highlighted widespread pricing rationalisation, saying: “Unfortunately for the last decade, the industry went on a content oversupply bender”.
Predicting three to five big global players in the next five to 10 years, in addition to “local champions in individual markets”, Perrette was “very optimistic” that streaming could get to decent margins in the next few is challenged today… our different to some others in adding: “We have three profitability, we have share, We have always said that profitable and in fewer than have more houseand be losing billions of dollars.”
Suicide, eating disorders, mental health, dementia, homelessness and immigration are part of Singapore’s latest video conversation, with filmmakers surfacing a social underbelly that would once, in a shiny country proud of its development and modern advantages, have been taboo. Led by young homegrown talent, Singapore’s new wave of short-form programming is unafraid, unflinching and sometimes confrontational, putting unvarnished reality, including survivors of all
manner of ills, families under pressure and raw emotion front and centre of their work.
Over the last two years, premium short form programming in Singapore has seen a wave of content such as born-in-Singapore digital platform Viddsee’s Uncomfortable Questions and Love & Grief, while Our Grandfather Story (OGS) – another homegrown platform – has offered series such as Can Ask Meh? and TBH (To Be Honest).
Even mainstream CNA, the international 24-hour current affairs channel owned and operated by national broadcaster Mediacorp, is on board, with, for instance, three-part series, Homeless in Singapore
Each episode on CNA’s YouTube channel received more than 300,000 views. In a country where 89.3% of residents own a home – one of the highest home-ownership rates in the world – this docu-series provides challenging insights to the day-to-day lives of rough sleepers.
“It seemed to us that a lot of Singaporeans were vaguely aware that homelessness exists in Singapore,” says Sharon Hun Ee Lin, Mediacorp’s deputy chief editor of current affairs. “But the true nature and magnitude of the issue were unfamiliar territory for them,” she adds.
“Our fi rst challenge was fi nding profi les who were willing to appear onscreen without having to conceal their identities. We wanted to challenge the stereotypes that people have about the homeless,” Lin says.
Viddsee, which first started in 2013 as a platform curating short films, moved into producing original content telling “raw, unfiltered stories on taboo topics” after witnessing the boom of short-form video content on social media platforms.
Singapore’s short-form filmmakers and platforms are taking a whole new look at domestic issues that would once have been considered taboo, challenging stereotypes and putting topics such as suicide, mental health, death, dying and homelessness front and centre of their work.
We saw the opportunity for a very different offering to what’s on broadcast television. .. raw stories, a kind of confession of something personal. ”
Michele Schofield, SVP, Commercial, Viddsee
Today, Viddsee has more than one million subscribers on its main YouTube platform, while also running a separate Nuggets by Viddsee account focused on bite-sized content targetting Singaporean youth.
“TikTok is not really a social platform like Facebook and Instagram, where you’re connected with your friends. When you go on TikTok, you’re scrolling to watch content,” says Michele Schofield, Viddsee’s senior VP of commercial.
“We saw the opportunity for a very different offering to what’s on broadcast television. People have found it moving to watch these raw stories, which are a kind of confession of something quite personal. That content tends to do quite well and goes viral,” she says.
A key consideration is avoiding exploiting topics for the sake of clicks. The balance is increasingly difficult to achieve in a media landscape where platforms have to optimise engagement and views for financial survival, and one where algorithms prioritise content that draws strong and extreme reactions.
“This is a tricky thing to balance because we operate in the social media space. Especially on YouTube, we think about thumbnails and titles,” says OGS co-founder, Ng Kai Yuan.
Hidden Hustles: Life in Death (2022) for instance, is a three-part miniseries featuring jobs in the death industry – an embalmer, a funeral director, and volunteers who give a final bath to the terminally ill. The aim is to encourage conversations about enabling dignified deaths, OGS says.
Ng says “the key is ensuring that you tell the story responsibly. You could, for example, have a title that is a bit sensational but eventually it’s how you tell the story within the video itself. That takes it in a different direction. We could go via a very sensational route or we could go a very educational route”.
Schofield points out that the Viddsee team works hard for balance. For example, episode two of Viddsee’s original series, Love & Grief, is titled To My Lost Mum, and tells the story of a woman whose mother was
murdered by the family’s domestic helper when she was six years old.
Schofield says that if Viddsee had called the episode My Helper Murdered My Mother, social media engagement may have soared.
“I asked myself if we were being insensitive towards the subject by calling the video that, are we exploiting her and her story with that title for it to go viral,” she says. “That’s what you have to weigh up when you are putting the keywords in there without seeming like you’re exploiting the subject.”
The platforms use different systems to gather ideas and commission videos.
For OGS, Ng says the team works like a “publisher”, with an internal monthly meeting for the creative team to look at story pitches that come in from video journalists. Most videos take four to eight weeks to produce.
Ng says that it is advantageous that most of OGS’ team members are in their 20s and 30s, which provides helpful firsthand insight into what topics and stories will do well among their audience.
“For example, in TBH, we are trying to tackle problems from a millennial perspective,” Ng says. “We have a core audience that’s around that age looking for content like that. The past couple of episodes that are out are doing pretty decently.”
The key is ensuring you tell the story responsibly.”
Kai Yuan Ng Co-founder, Our Grandfather Story (OGS)
The first video in the TBH series investigates how much rent a young adult can save by living in Malaysia’s Johor Bahru instead of Singapore. As of end September, the video had received 357,000 views since its premiere in mid-July 2023.
For Viddsee, studio head Kenny Tan does most of the commissioning. The platform also has a “greenlight council” made up of the commercial and marketing teams, which provide feedback.
“We sit there to say what we think the audience is going to respond to,” says Schofield, who draws on experience from her previous content and marketing roles at A+E Networks Asia, One Animation and Turner Entertainment Networks. “I weigh in on ideas and sometimes say that I need
a more SEO-rich title or flag if a series feels similar to another series.” One of Viddsee’s priorities is opening opportunities to filmmakers across Singapore, and, in addition to being constantly on the lookout for ideas, the platform does regular call-outs to factual filmmakers.
“We’ll give them the format and duration that we’re looking for and the rest is up to them to pitch,” Schofield says. The production cycle for these videos ranges from three to six months.
For CNA, Hun’s team has to be open to evolving docu-series beyond the original brief to show, for instance, how the homeless community hacks the lack of convenient facilities, including potable water, washing clothes or dealing with the lack of privacy at shelters.
“We quickly realised that the hacking wasn’t just a feature of homelessness. These were symptoms of deeper issues that have resulted in them falling into systemic gaps,” she says.
“Another mis-perception is that the biggest problem the homeles s in Singapore face is where to sleep at night. But in fact, Sing apore provides shelters. So actually, their biggest challenge is what to do in the day.”
Looking ahead, OGS aims to expand beyond Singapore and tell stories about Southeast Asia, although Ng admits that the “fragmented” nature of the Southeast Asian market is a challenge.
Ng says the push in the past two years has been for YouTube and TikTok, with longer former videos of 20-25 minutes replacing microdocumentaries of three to five minutes.
For Viddsee, Schofield says that the platform plans to increase its volume of content by 30% in the next year, expanding the team, and growing its TikTok audience.
Viddsee’s experience in the social space continues to evolve... and to surprise. “Our short dramatic films have performed really well on TikTok,” Schofield says, explaining that Viddsee adapts its short films to a vertical format. “You would think that everyone there wants infotainment and that short films would be a hard genre, but we found quite the opposite,” she says. – by Sara Merican
We wanted to challenge the stereotypes people have about the homeless.”
Sharon Hun Ee Lin
Deputy Chief Editor of Current Affairs, Mediacorp“Darius”, a minor with a difficult family relationship, does not have access to public rental housing because of his age.
Content costs are out of control, pay-TV is “yet to be meaningfully disrupted”, MPA’s Vivek Couto says.
Five players control Asia’s premium video-on-demand market, with Netflix in the lead in three of them and running neck-and-neck with Prime Video in the largest US$6.1-billion Japanese market.
Analysis from Media Partners Asia (MPA) puts Netflix’s premium VOD (incl SVOD/premium AVOD) revenues in five markets – Australia, Japan, Korea, India and Indonesia – at US$3.12 billion against Prime Video’s US$1.7 billion and Disney+/Disney+ Hotstar at US$827 million.
The next five years will have to be about “more measured” content costs, which have spiralled, MPA executive director/co-founder, Vivek Couto, says. “Local and Asian content drives the streaming economy, but costs are clearly out of control,” he adds, suggesting that “as online video penetrates deeper, per unit content costs needs to be rationalised and subsidised with ads”.
Content aggregation and smart service bundles will be critical to drive subscriber growth. From January to August 2023, local and Asian content drove 79% of premium VOD viewership in Korea, dropping to 68% in Japan and 48% in India. In Indonesia, local content drove 15% of viewership over the same period, MPA’s latest research shows.
MPA expects content investments in India to double over the next five years, primarily driven by sports, following US$11 billion of concluded
sports rights over the last 18 months. Sports is projected to constitute 30% of content investment in India by 2028.
Couto highlights overwhelming engagement with services such as YouTube and TikTok. Paid premium VOD users in parts of Asia spend up to 90% of their screentime outside of the subscription environment, MPA says. Premium VOD attracts 7% of paying subscribers’ share of screentime in Japan, rising to 8% in Indonesia and 10% in India.
MPA expects APAC video industry revenue, excluding China, to increase to US$92 billion by 2028, up from US$62 billion in 2023. Online revenue’s percentage will increase 8.8% (CAGR), while TV will drop 1.1%.
Couto says pay-TV is “yet to be meaningfully disrupted in key markets”, and that as subscription growth slows, advertising and price increases were “key for the future” in Japan, while in Indonesia “price increases and rationalisation will drive sustainability”.
Pay-TV disruption varies across the region, from India, “where disruption won’t occur in probably fi ve years”, to Indonesia, where “there wasn’t really a pay-TV market to begin with”, and where online video players are growing the premium category from scratc h, Couto says, describing the situation as “challenging but they a re succeeding slowly”.
