Formatting and Change in East Asian Television Industries: Media Globalization and Regional Dynamics Lim, Wei Ling Tania Patricia BSocSc (Hons), MSc (Media & Comms) Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre Queensland University of Technology Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2005 Keywords Circuit of cultural production, East Asian popular culture, Television industries, Field of broadcasting, Formatting, Local knowledge, Media capitals, Neo-networks, Regional dynamics, TV Formats, martial arts dramas, teenage idol soap operas, game-shows. ii Abstract Television is increasingly both global and local. Those television industries discussed in this thesis transact in an extensive neo-network of flows in talents, financing, and the latest forms of popular culture. These cities attempt to become media capitals but their status waxes and wanes, depending on their success in exporting their Asian media productions. What do marital arts dramas, interactive game-shows, children’s animation and teenage idol soap operas from East Asian television industries have in common? Through the systematic use of TV formatting strategies, these television genres have become the focus for indigenous cultural entrepreneurs located in the East Asian cities of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taipei to turn their local TV programmes into tradable culture. This thesis is a re-consideration of the impact of media globalisation on Asian television that re-imagines a new global media order. It suggests that there is a growing shift in perception and trade among once-peripheral television industries that they may be slowly de-centring Hollywood’s dominance by inserting East Asian popular entertainment into familiar formats or cultural spaces through embracing global yet local cultures of production. While TV formats like Survivor, Millionaire, Big Brother and American Idol have become profitable and powerful franchises globally, in East Asia, the size of TV format trade is actually eclipsed by the regional trade in East Asian popular cultural commodities from martial arts novels and films, manga and romantic fiction, to popular music. These commodities have become the source of remaking local television culture into tradable cultures as local TV programmes use formatting practices to circulate within their region. The many faces of formatting in television are explored through four case studies - from Hong Kong (TVB’s Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre), Singapore (Robert Chua Productions’ Everyone Wins, Peach Blossom Media’s Tomato Twins) and Taipei (Comic Ritz Production’s Meteor Garden). Conceptualised as Asian media productions, these TV programmes are sites for examining individual iii agency, the network flows of popular culture and structural changes of their respective broadcasting fields. This thesis argues that TV formatting practices can become a currency for neo- networked media producers to create a medium of cultural exchange that sets up the possibility for a common market for cultural trade in East Asia. However, the ease with which TV formatting practices and re-sale of TV programmes are copied lower barriers for competition and often this tends toward over production. Over-exposure kills many new genres of production and discourages investment in the research and development component of creating TV formats for trade. Change in East Asian television industries is also aided by media conglomeration, global access through satellite TV, the Internet and increasingly digital entertainment, media de-regulation and pro- development policies. A number of factors and conditions that accompany the rise of TV formatting in East Asia (such as the role of independents vis-à-vis big local players, the emergence of copyright issues and marketing celebrities) contribute to the innovations that result from adapting formatting practices to local contexts, and suggest how each city’s television industry attempts to address the rise of tradable cultural commodities that are increasingly made for pan-Asian consumption. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF DIAGRAMS………………………………………………….………….vi ABBREVIATIONS & NOTE ABOUT CHINESE NAMES..…..…….………. viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………….……………………….…………x CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………...1 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK………………………………………………..31 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY……………………...………………...66 CHAPTER FOUR: THE ASCENT OF HONG KONG TELEVISION AND MARTIAL ARTS DRAMA SERIALS………………………….…………85 CHAPTER FIVE: THE CASE FOR SINGAPORE: NEW SINGAPORE, NEW MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES……………..…….….119 CHAPTER SIX: THE REACH OF TAIWAN – TAIWANESE TEENAGE SOAP OPERA/POP IDOLS………………..….….159 CHAPTER SEVEN: EAST ASIAN TELEVISION: IGNITING THE GLOBE?..................................................................................................................192 CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSION………………………………………..….234 APPENDICES………………………………………………………………...…..254 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………...257 v LIST OF DIAGRAMS Diagram 1.1: Destinations of Programs Exported from Japan (fiscal 2001 survey)…………………………………...…….6 Diagram 3.1: Circuit of culture applied to TV and other fields of production…………………………………………..…………70 Diagram 3.2: Field of TV Broadcasting mapped on to a Value Chain of Broadcasting …………………………………....………..71 Diagram 3.3 – Ideal product life cycle of non-cultural consumer goods…………………………………………..……….…72 Diagram 3.4 Mapping the relationship between genres and formats in a circuit of cultural production ……………….….……..78 Diagram 4.1: Hong Kong’s Overlapping fields of cultural production (a broadcasting-centric view)………………………………88 Diagram 4.2: Circulation of Jin Yong’s novels in the fields of Film and on Television Broadcasting…………………………....99 Diagram 4.3: Value chain of Hong Kong television broadcasting for martial arts dramas…………………………………………………….…… 107 Diagram 4.4: Comparison of TVB’s adaptations of HSDS……………….…...109 Diagram 4.5: Top Ten Rated Programmes On TVB In 2001…………..……...114 . Diagram 4.6: Circuit of cultural production – Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre……………………………………….............117 Diagram 5.1: Article featuring Everyone Wins in Straits Times (2002)…...…131 Diagram 5.2 Structure/Crust of Everyone Wins in Singapore…………………134 5.2 (a) During NKF Charity show 2003…………………………134 5.2 (b) During regular season on Channel 8 in 2003-2004……...135 Diagram 5.3 Example of Narratives/themes used in Everyone Wins…….….…136 Diagram 5.4 Comparison of Everyone Wins to ‘East Asian Model’ checklist (Cooper-Chen, 1993)………………….………...139 Diagram 5.5 Descriptive profile of television episodes of Tomato Twins (Series 1)………………………………………………………151 vi Diagram 5.6 Screenshots of Tomato Twins versus Powerpuff Girls….………...154 Diagram 6.1 Comparison of Commercial Terrestrial TV Stations……….…...166 Diagram 6.2: Inserting of ‘television moments’ into the Taiwanese field of broadcasting…………..……………………………………..168 Diagram 6.3 Value-chain of Taiwanese television broadcasting for teenage idol dramas …………………………….....180 Diagram 6.4 Licensed script & adaptation of Japanese comic Hana Yori Dango into Meteor Garden….………………………….……..183 Diagram 6.5: F4 Look-a-likes?..............................................................................185 Diagram 7.1: Characteristics of Media Capitals derived from Curtin (2003)…………………………………………………..…..197 Diagram 7.2 Comparison of 3 East Asian cities along Curtin’s (2003) media capital…………………………………..…..198 Diagram 7.3 Innovations found in the 4 case studies……………………….…..225 Diagram 8.1 Billboard Advertisement of F4 promoting Pepsi in Taiwan….....248 Diagram 8.2 HYD manga & merchandise and related MG spin-off…….……249 vii ABBREVIATIONS MDA Media Development Authority MediaCorp Singapore Media Corporation of Singapore TV Television TVB Television Broadcast Limited (Hong Kong) NOTE ABOUT CHINESE NAMES AND WORDS Within the text, several different styles of Chinese translation have been used so as to realize correct translations of programme titles. In Singapore, we used the ‘hanyu pinyin’ system of romanization, in Hong Kong, all romanicised Chinese names and words while in the Republic of Taiwan we used the ‘zhuyin’ system. Elsewhere, some romanized Chinese names have been cited selectively because of their relative importance to the thesis. Some romanized Chinese names are displayed by their traditional order of Family name and followed by the First name of the person. For example, Lee Ang or Chow Yuen-Fatt. viii Statement of original authorship The work contained in this thesis was not previously submitted for a degree of diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due references are made in the thesis itself. Tania (Patricia Wei-Ling) Lim November 2005 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Undertaking academic research after working for seven years in the media sector, was a great challenge for me. I am deeply grateful to my two supervisors, Dr Terry Flew and Dr Michael Keane, who have endured all of my rough edits, multiple drafts, and enabled me to grow mentally and analytically throughout the time spent in Brisbane, Australia. I am also deeply appreciative of Professor Stuart Cunningham for his invaluable guidance and of the opportunities to work at CIRAC. I am indebted to my ex-colleagues at the MDA and my industry respondents from Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei, who have all given generously of their time despite their extremely busy schedules: Koh Tin-Fook, Keh Li-Ling