Betawi programs become favorite
JAKARTA (JP): Rano Karno, producer and actor of the popular television series Si Doel Anak Sekolahan (Doel, the Graduate), was upset to discover that the series had been pirated abroad.
He said he was surprised to hear people calling him Doel when he was on the pilgrimage to Mecca at the end of last year. The series had never been broadcast on any Saudi Arabian television stations, but it turned out that it had been widely circulated there in the form of video tapes.
Indeed, this is a sad story in terms of finance and copyrights. But, viewing it from another perspective, the pirating shows the undeniable popularity of the film, which tells of the way of life of Doel, a young Betawi (indigenous Jakartan) man.
Si Doel is possibly a milestone among the success stories of television series based on Betawi themes. A survey done by the research and development center of the Kompas daily recently indicates that 70 percent of Jakarta's nine million inhabitants enjoy and appreciate Si Doel.
Still another survey was carried out by Survey Research Indonesia (SRI), which is affiliated with the United States-based Nielsens International, during the period of Jan. 29 to June 3 this year to determine the popularity of the various television programs being broadcast. The results showed that Si Doel was the outright rating winner. In response to such great appreciation for the show, the privately-owned station, RCTI, started reruns of Si Doel in May.
"The response is still good although this is not the first showing. For each episode, we can still sell almost the whole time allocated for commercials," said Iksan, who is on RCTI's public relations department staff.
Adwin Wibisono of SRI, confirming Iksan's statement, told The Jakarta Post that the episode of Si Doel, screened on the first of May, reaped a total of Rp 134 million (around US$60,0000) from 21 commercials run for 11 minutes during the 62-minute show.
Iksan said that 12 minutes are allocated for commercials during each episode of Si Doel.
Currently, the rate for running a 30-second commercial spot during the episode of Si Doel is around Rp 6 million, or Rp 2 million more than the rate set when Si Doel was aired for the first time early this year, Iksan revealed.
He added that despite its regional theme, Si Doel is loved not only by the Betawi people and others living in Jakarta.
"We air this throughout the country and the response from outside Greater Jakarta is good too," Iksan said.
Si Doel is not the only Betawi-rooted TV series to gain such a popularity. Other programs such as Lenong Bocah, Hari Harry Mau and Flamboyan 108, which are telecast respectively by the privately-owned stations TPI, ANteve and Indosiar, have also received good response. Only Erte Erwe, a spin-off of Si Doel shown on RCTI, has not done as well as projected.
SRI found that during the period of May 28 to June 6, Flamboyan 108 was the seventh most popular program in the Bandung, Semarang and Surabaya areas.
"Maybe people like these Betawi programs because the Betawi people portrayed are spontaneous, innocent and humorous. And the Betawi people are like that," Iksan said. (als)