Opportunities Abound as Filipino Buyers Maintain Appetite for Foreign Content

Still on an even keel, as content sources and genres meet acquisition needs

Despite disconcerting developments in the Filipino M&E industry earlier this year, the market continues to be appealing. A recent discussion with significant Filipino buyers revealed that there is still great appetite for drama, formats, sports and animation among the country’s M&E platforms, with a growing interest in co-production.

Straight talk from the likes of Cignal TV, Solar Entertainment and Viu Philippines gave attendees clear intelligence of what content will work based on the audience they serve.

The Filipino market’s current buying needs synergized with the content that webinar attendees are looking to sell. Cignal TV’s testimony of being more open to other Asian content matched attendee market representation that included the likes of India, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Solar Entertainment’s preference and historical acquisitions rest in English language content, in line with a good portion of the pie from the UK and the US.

Foreign player Viu’s affirmation of the success of more Filipino content, along with Korean and Chinese dramas and variety shows, work well with a dominant market representation of China, Singapore, the Philippines and Korea in the mix.

Market representation of attendees to ATF PLUGGED-iN SERiES 2020 – Filipino Buyers Speak
Source: ATF

Set against the in-session polling of ATF’s PLUGGED-iN SERiES 2020 – Filipino Buyers Speak, where Drama, Kids’ Content and Doc/Factual dominate, synergy continued. For example, Cignal TV spoke well of e-learning (pre-school) and entertainment animation.

As well, Solar Entertainment said they were big on factual, looking for any fresh unscripted reality titles that could appeal to female audiences, along with sports reality competitions that could feature healthy fitness teamwork. Meanwhile, Viu maintains a triumphant strategy of dramas, dramas, dramas.

Source: ATF PLUGGED-iN SERiES 2020 | Filipino Buyers Speak (May, 2020)

The discussion also disclosed vast opportunities to explore more formats that seem to attract Filipinos in general.

For the full recording of ATF’s PLUGGED-iN SERiES 2020 – Filipino Buyers Speak, visit www.asiatvforum.com/en-us/ATF-Plugged-In-Series.html  

"We are keen on co-production, but that will need longer discussions."

"We are more open to other Asian content – not just Korean – and we recently partnered with JKN for Thai content."

Isavel C. Enriquez, Content Acquisitions Manager, Cignal TV, Inc.

"We’ve done 2 co-productions with Japan, and we’d like to do more."

"For non-English, we’ve never bought any foreign language content, but on our theatrical side, we distribute a lot of non-English movies, Thai, French etc."

Wilson Tieng, President & CEO, Solar Entertainment Corporation

"Viu capitalises on drama for our heavy female market. We are heavy in Korean and Chinese dramas."

"Turkish & Thai is the next Korean… Thai content is still more of an urgent need right now… Our audience base determines the dramas we buy."

"Japanese and Korean dramas and variety shows attract most Filipinos, but it always will be drama that really sells."

Yazmin Basa, Head of Content, Vuclip