Dubbing in TV soap operas to continue

Dubbing in TV soap operas to continue

JAKARTA (JP): Private television networks will continue to
screen Latin American and Chinese television soap operas dubbed
into the Indonesian language, at least for the time being, Antara
reported yesterday.

A meeting was held between executives of Indonesia's five
private TV stations and government officials in mid-October,
after the Indonesian film industry demanded that the soap operas
not be dubbed into Indonesian.

The Latin American and Chinese TV soap operas, or
"telenovelas", are becoming increasingly popular in Indonesia.

However, the October meeting failed to reach agreement on the
issue, SCTV public relations chief Budi Darmawan said, as quoted
by Antara.

"If the government decides that we should stop dubbing the
telenovelas, then, sure, we'll comply," Budi said.

Local film executives argue that the danger of the intrusion
of alien cultures into Indonesia is greater with the dubbing of
these programs into the local language. They say the soap operas
should be screened with Indonesian subtitles instead.

Budi noted that dubbing is widely practiced in other
countries. "In Thailand, almost every film is dubbed. They are so
good at it that they sometimes dub programs live to air," he
added.

He said that viewers are able to understand dubbed soap operas
more easily than if subtitles were used. He added that the
practice of dubbing the serials had led to a mushrooming of
production houses. "Clearly this is creating new job
opportunities and encouraging productivity in the production
houses," he said.

President of the Indosiar TV network, Anky Handoko, said
earlier that his station would stop airing dubbed foreign
programs if the government says so.

Indosiar will not have any problem at all if dubbing into
Indonesian is forbidden, because the Mandarin programs that it
airs have already been dubbed into English, he said.

"So it would only be a matter of adding subtitles to our
programs," he added. (emb)