Unfair practice hurt production houses

Unfair practice hurt production houses

JAKARTA (JP): While the demand for locally produced
teleserials is rocketing, their producers are in dire straits.

Every year, more than 2,000 sinetron (teleserials) titles are
required by local television stations as they are obliged to have
local content amounting to 70 percent of their total programs.
But only a very few producers can meet the demand.

Last year, about 600 local production houses made TV programs.
Only half of them were registered with the government. And now,
most of them are dying.

The downfall of these companies is caused by several factors,
including lack of professionalism, unhealthy business practice
and a market monopoly.

Raam Punjabi, the founder of PT Tripar Multivision Plus, whose
productions fill 90 percent of the TV time allotted for sinetron,
told a recent seminar that the sinetron industry is a serious and
lucrative business.

"Many producers, especially newcomers, are attracted to
sinetron because of the glittering image but they often forget
the business aspect," commented the movie mogul who has been
involved in the film industry since the early l970s.

The industry is actually far from glamourous, he said. Like
other ventures, those who want to succeed in the sinetron
business need set strategies, namely skilled human resources, hi-
tech hardware, strong capital, efficient managerial and marketing
backup as well as a secure distribution pipeline. No less
important is sharp and witty business intuition to lead the
market, said Raam.

He also said that producing sinetron or movies is also a
breakneck business. "Success does not come easily. It was really
hard work. We frequently faced rocky periods and suffered from
big losses if our productions failed in the market."

Competition in the sinetron business is not that intense
because the market is still wide open, he said.

Zoraya Perucha, Corporate Communication Manager of ANteve
television station, said every private television station badly
needs as many local productions as possible to meet the
government's local content requirement.

"Let's just say that we have 22 hours of television time a
day, of which five hours are set aside solely for sinetron. We
televise half-hour Indonesian sinetron, so we need at least 10
titles a day," said Zoraya.

ANteve has a policy to purchase sinetron from local production
houses since the TV station cannot produce enough of its own.

"This way we let other production houses "live and eat" as
well," she added.

With such big opportunities, small production houses are
likely to corner a large proportion of the market.

But Marisa Haque Fawzi, the owner of independent production
house PT Rana Artha Mulia Film Production, is bitter about the
domination of PT Multvision Group in the sinetron market.

"People like us only occupy the remaining 10 percent of the
market. So I concentrate on making quality sinetron. My mission
is to make educative sinetron with entertaining packaging," said
Marisa, whose production Salah Asoehan won the best drama serial
category in the l994 sinetron festival.

Zoraya said that to make a quality sinetron, budget plays one
of the most significant parts. Last year, the budget for each 75-
minute movie made for television was Rp 125 million. To meet the
planned budget, production houses must choose the most suitable
actors, director and cameraman without sacrificing quality. They
might use little-known actors or talented newcomers as a way to
cut costs.

"There is the problem of accommodating good quality within a
30-minute sinetron production -- Rp 40 million per episode," she
said.

It is hard for independent and low budget companies which
produce "art and quality" sinetron to penetrate the market which
prefers easy-to-watch and lighthearted products like melodramas,
comedies and action-thrillers.

"It is all up to our creativity and canny speculation in
creating themes that meet the market's demands as well as
advertisers'," Raam defended.

Many production houses fail to meet the demand because their
work is not liked by both the audience and the advertisers.

The "liked" and "not liked" products are currently determined
solely on ratings conducted by Survey Research Indonesia (SRI).

Some unwritten rules set by TV stations demand local
production houses test five to six episodes of 13-episode
sinetron. If this sinetron gets good ratings, the TV stations
will continue airing it.

But if there is no response from the audience, meaning poor
ratings, the sinetron will vanish from the TV screens. That is
how the story goes.

Conversely sinetron with high ratings attract advertisers and
become a major source of revenue for the television stations.

Television observer Rakaryan S., however, revealed in the
Kompas daily that there is still a lack of fairness in the
business dealing between TV stations and production houses.

"Most local production houses are placed in a weak bargaining
position when it comes to setting up business contracts with
television stations," he was quoted as saying.

The TV stations, he said, will dictate the terms of deals
which involving the holding of copyright including performing
rights, merchandising rights and mechanical rights. That means
that the bulk of revenue will go mostly to the TV stations.

Production houses, on the other hand, sometimes get paid late
by the TV stations. "For big-budget companies, there will be no
problem. But, small-scale firms will suffer from this kind of
business arrangement. To produce a sinetron, they usually get
loans from a bank. How can they pay their debts when they do not
get paid properly," he said.

The saddest thing is that there is no standard business
contract between production houses and television stations.
Discrimination still exists.

A business deal with one production house will be different
from a contract with another; it depends on personal factors more
than professional judgments from TV executives, Rakaryan said.

Owners of production houses, the small-scale ones in
particular, often lack confidence to sell their products at the
right price and are likely to accept all the terms set by the TV
stations.

Rakaryan urged production house executives to master all the
necessary legal aspects of the sinetron industry to create a more
healthy business. (raw/02)