Production houses booming amid growing need for stars
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
"There's no business like show business" is perhaps a good phrase to describe the current rosy situation in the Indonesian television industry.
All television stations are vying to create the "most entertaining" programs to lure viewers and as such attract advertisers.
With 12 national TV stations and several regional TV stations now on air, certainly competition to grab a slice of the advertisement cake has become tighter. For the TV stations, there is no alternative but to produce the best programs to succeed in the competition.
While news programs are sometimes able to attract advertisements, most are broadcast during the commercial breaks of entertainment programs.
Such programs be they infotainment, reality shows (including contests of singers and comedians), and soap operas locally known as sinetron are all vying for advertisements.
It would be impossible for the TV stations to make all of their entertainment programs by themselves. They depend mostly on production houses for the programs.
One of the nation's largest and oldest production houses is Multivision Plus, which is owned by the "king" of sinetron Raam Punjabi.
In his book titled Panggung Kehidupan Raam Punjabi (The life stage of Raam Punjabi), Raam recalled that his production house started to get many orders following the establishment of the country's first television station RCTI in the 1990s.
Since then Raam's sinetrons -- which were often criticized for not reflecting the reality of life in Indonesian -- could be seen on almost all TV stations. Attractive actors, luxurious houses and cars, love and tragedy are common features.
"I know that my viewers are middle- to lower-class people," Raam said. "But I can't use their problems as story ideas. It would only depress them."
Dozens of wannabe stars can be seen daily at Multivision's five-story office in the Roxy area, West Jakarta, waiting for an audition.
Following the success of Multivision, dozens of new production houses, big and small, have been established in Jakarta and other big cities, seeking to meet the growing demand of the TV industry for entertainment programs. They are recruiting new stars, mostly based on their looks.
Avicom production house operational director Maman Suherman admitted that many wannabe stars were ready to give all they have to be cast in a sinetron.
"Some parents are also ready to pay in order that their children get a role in a sinetron. There are many nasty stories related to the casting. But I always tell my men to be professional," Maman told The Jakarta Post recently.
Two years ago, a producer was arrested for fraudulently casting several girls as models of a soap product. The man filmed the young women naked.
Being an advertising model is believed to be the first step to become a television star. Normally, production houses or TV stations would give priority to advertising models in the selection with the expectation that companies that use their modeling services would be willing to place ads during the airing of the sinetron
For one episode of a sinetron series, a popular star can get up to Rp 50 million, while a beginner may receive only a "transportation fee" for a few minutes appearance on the sinetron.
Production houses usually sell an episode of a sinetron series at between Rp 200 million to Rp 250 million to a TV station. They usually sign a contract for the screening of 13 episodes. The TV stations will extend the contract, if rating agency AC Nielsen says the rating of the sinetron is high and will end it if Nielsen says the sinetron is bad.
"All television stations and advertisers depend on the ratings issued by AC Nielsen. If a program gains a low rating, it would be dropped as the prospects of getting advertising for the program would be slim," Asaf Antariksa, ANTeve's planning and scheduling manager, told the Post.