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Robert Ting-Yiu Chung (Director of Public Opinion Programme, the University of Hong Kong) Translated by Chan Suet Lai (Research Executive, Public Opinion Programme, the University of Hong Kong) |
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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong. |
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From a concept to become an actual operation, up to organizing a large-scale award ceremony, TV Programme Appreciation Index (TVAI) Survey has already been developed in Hong Kong for nearly 20 years. The author was honored to be involved in designing such new generation type of TVAI Survey in 1997, and has been taken up the responsibility for the survey operation since 1998. Some years ago, the "TVAI Panel" appointed the author to review the survey findings, the author then initiated a simple methodology to categorize and compare every quality TV programme. The methodology is to gather the top 20 TV programmes from the yearend results in the past five years, so altogether there are 100 programmes. Then those overlapping programmes were re-grouped, and they were analyzed according to categories. The first type of programmes is called "Year-round quality current affairs programmes". They are ranked in the top 20 every year between 2001 and 2005, as well as appear in all 20 quarterly waves. There are altogether 4 programmes in this category. After they are sorted according to average Appreciation Indices (AI) in descending order, the programmes in this category are TVB's "Certain Weekday Report" and "News Magazine", RTHK's "Hong Kong Connection" and Cable TV's "Cable News". These four whole year productions have maintained their superiority on a long run basis and became brand programmes which are crme de la crme. Compare with those yearend results from 2000 to 2004, "Cable News" is the first time to become a nonpareil programme, it does not only change the number of programmes of its type from three to four, it has also emphasized the importance of 24 hours news programmes in our contemporary society. Apart from those four elite programmes, there are another two whole year productions which rank top 20 in the last five yearend results, and appear in every quarterly wave in those years. They are regarded as second-class quality current affairs programmes, the author would coin them as "Quasi-year-round quality current affairs programmes". According to the order of their average AIs, they are RTHK's "Police Magazine" and TVB's "News / Finance / Weather Report" respectively. These programmes deserve recognition because it is extremely difficult for year-round production to keep up the quality on a long-term basis. Another type of current affairs programmes has apparently different production objective from the previous ones. They are occasional production but achieve extremely high standard, they have to be in top 20 at least for three years out of five, which considered as "Frequently on-the-list quality current affairs programmes". There are four programmes of this type in total. After sorting them in terms of the number of times on the list and then their average AIs, namely TVB's "Yearend Review Series", ATV's "Stories from Afar", RTHK's "Success Stories" and "Doctor and You Series" are classified as brand programmes. "Stories from Afar" has won the highest yearend AI programme for four times before, but it was no longer produced in 2005, looks like the programme is going to retreat gradually. All of the above 10 programmes can be treated as best of the best current affairs shows. Whereas for quality entertainment programmes, due to fact that the nature of different programmes are not the same, the audience's appreciation angle also differs. Therefore the author has to divide them into three categories. There are five "Quality long drama series" in the last five years. According to their respective average AIs in descending order, they are "Square Pegs", "War and Beauty", "Triumph In The Skies", "Healing Hands II" and "Life Made Simple". They were all produced by TVB, in which "Life Made Simple" was produced in 2005. Drama production is undoubtedly TVB's strength. As with "Quality short drama series/reality dramas" sorted in terms of their average AIs, RTHK's "Difficult Life", "On the Beat II"; ATV's "Awakening Stories of Drug Addicts"; RTHK's "Mid-night Workers", "Love at the Age of SARS", "Love at the Age of SARS"; TVB's "ICAC Investigation 2004"; RTHK's "After the Rain" and "When We Were Young", altogether eight programmes are in this category. However, "When We Were Young" is the only programme on the list in 2005, showing a reduction in producing this type of quality programmes. The last point to note is those game shows. The only "Quality game shows" on the list in the last five years is ATV's "Who wants to be a Millionaire", and it is only on the list in 2001, meaning that the mania for game shows have already passed. As a simple conclusion, the 24 programmes that this article has mentioned can be treated as the best local production in the last five years. Since there are some methodological limitations, some "Other types" of quality programmes, such as some outstanding foreign programmes, repackaged programmes, mainland or foreign drama series and some few-minute shows produced around the year have been omitted in the discussion. But there is no doubt that the Korean drama series "Jewel in the Palace" have brought a fervor last year, this directly led TVB's "Jewel in the Palace: Prologue" into "Yearend Top 10". In long run, the author hopes that all quality TV programmes, regardless of their categories and number of broadcast, can be included into the TVAI survey once the programme is nominated or agreed by the "TVAI Panel". This would increase the pragmatic value of the indices and promote the production of quality programmes in a quality society. |
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Table 1： Year-round quality current affairs programmes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Table 2: Quasi-year-round quality current affairs programmes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Table 3: Frequently on-the-list quality current affairs programmes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Table 4: Quality long drama series | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Table 5: Quality short drama series/reality dramas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Table 6: Quality game shows | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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