State of Malay Television in Singapore

When it comes to Suria’s audience, Halim (2016) posits that they hope to “reflect the affluent and new breed of Malay Singaporeans”. However, what exactly are we referring to when discussing Malay Singaporeans, let alone a new breed of them? Kwek (2012) explores the notion of an imagined audience, and the construction of Malays by Suria’s producers. Programming decisions at Suria will then be informed by this construction of Malays – by showcasing programming that is conservative and “safe”, and perhaps even using these programmes to change the mindsets of this imagined audience. Kwek then goes on to conclude how, through “the articulation of the Malayness of its audience, Suria’s producers had produced themselves as its distinct other, supposedly more progressive and open.”⁵ This is what this “new breed of Malay Singaporeans” is supposed to look like.

For the purposes of this article, we examined current programmes aired on Suria at the time of writing. While this may only be a snapshot in the larger broadcasting schedule of the channel, this is still a useful reference in looking at what is being offered by Suria as a channel, and determining whether it successfully serves its function as mentioned previously.

OBSERVATION 1: NATURE OF ACQUIRED PROGRAMMES

As mentioned on the Suria website, the channel offers “wholesome family entertainment with both local and regional programmes that are both enjoyable and educational.” From this snapshot of the broadcasting schedule of the channel, we observe that the differences in nature of local and regional programmes offered are rather stark.

Local programmes aired offer less drama genres, instead focusing on informational and educational content from the variety or info-ed genre. Currently, Suria airs info-ed shows such as Cuti Sini, Jejak Jenayah, Cantik Detektif or Haikal Nak Jadi Cef that cover topics like travel, crime, beauty and wellness, and food, respectively.⁶ From here, we see that the channel seems to fit consumer’s needs and preferences of entertaining, educational and informative content that span various subjects. This preference is also reflected in Suria’s 2023 Top 10 Local Programme Ranking, where the top eight programmes are of the variety genre, and the remaining ones are informational.

On the contrary, from the acquired programmes category, while there are also informative shows such as Diari Seorang Traveller, these are few and far between. Instead, we note that series such as Jangan Menangis Cinta, Aku Titipkan Cinta, Bukan Syurga Pilihan that are categorised as Drama/Romance are on air every weekday. On top of this, there are at least six other Drama/Romance programme series whose episodes are aired at a lesser frequency, that ranges from once a week to four times a week. These fall under the romance category as their premise focuses largely on the coming together, or reconciliation, of two individuals. In the process, these series may also reflect various issues of the times – such as marital abuse, caregiving stress, or socio-economic disparities.

Not much has been shared about the processes of choosing Suria’s acquired programmes to be aired, but we can surmise that these programmes may have had good ratings when aired on home ground, either through a good storyline or a stellar cast. This may translate to viewership when aired in Singapore. Jangan Menangis Cinta (2022) stars Amyra Rosli and Remy Ishak, who are wildly successful actors in Malaysia. Coupling the premise of travel and comedy, Travelawak: Projek Bapak Bapak (2023) stars Dato’ Ramli MS, Dato’ Jalaluddin Hassan, Jatt Ali, and Roy Azman, all of whom have been entertainment industry trailblazers in Malaysia.

With the second function of Suria that serves to form a national outlook and identity, there are also considerations of values imparted by these acquired programmes. This is reflected in the Malay Programme Advisory Committee’s (MPAC) recommendations for Malay media in Singapore in 2006-2008, where they quote: “While the community should be exposed to diverse cultures and values, the broadcaster should be discerning in its selection, bearing in mind that foreign programmes may carry differing lifestyles and values to local Malay viewers.”⁷ While MPAC has released limited reports that are available online, there are no other elaborations on this thinking and processes behind choosing acquired programmes.

OBSERVATION 2: (PERCEIVED) LACK OF SINGAPOREAN MALAY PROGRAMMES

As a channel dedicated to the minority, Suria has to contend with lower viewership when compared to Channel 5 or Channel 8, with local director Sanif Olek saying that minority-centric “films are perceived to have difficulty to sell locally”.⁸ This can be observed in the many Malay dramas that Suria acquires, as compared to the number of local dramas that pale in comparison.

This lack of Singaporean Malay drama programmes, specifically, can be viewed through two lenses, regulation and language. Regulation comes in the form of the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and legislation in the form of the Broadcasting Act and Films Act, and no less than seven advisory committees. In their paper on censorship, Arts Engage (2010) quotes that despite consultation by the authorities, artists still felt that the “prevalence of censorship to be at odds both with the core values of democracy, equality, and justice … and with Singapore’s status as a dynamic, forward-looking society.”⁹ Additionally, Olek noted that logistical barriers such as lengthy production timeframes and an “economically pragmatic” Singapore society make it harder for local ideas to hit the screen.¹⁰

From a language point of view, Kwek (2011) argues that the categorisation of local television channels, including Suria, along racial lines, instead of genres itself is “anything but innocent” and “needs to be problematised”.¹¹ The very act of watching television programmes should be predicated on the form of the genre, such as sports, documentary, true crime – desired by the viewer, and not according to what their NRIC dictates. The need to showcase only standard forms of English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil languages also means that various dialects, and hence stories tied to those vernaculars, are restricted.¹² The prevalence of Bahasa Baku (a standardised spoken form of Malay) in local programmes, is a stark contrast to its colloquial and vernacular counterpart spoken in Malaysian programmes. Among the expectations laid out by the MPAC in its 2012 report include the “mindful” usage of the term “gerek”, despite its informal everyday usage.¹³ Suria proclaiming itself to “being the heartbeat of the Malay community” while having to adhere to Bahasa Baku, a form of language that the community itself does not see “as authentically indexing their Malay identity”, may also contribute to filmmakers and artists being less inclined to produce works as the result will only be a shadow of their desired productions and lived experiences.¹⁴

OBSERVATION 3: EFFORTS FOR INCREASED ENGAGEMENT AND VIEWERSHIP

The different eras of Suria reflect how it is keeping up with the ever-changing social Singaporean landscape. In recent years, we do observe concerted efforts to increase engagement and viewership among their target audience, to reflect the “affluent and new breed of Singaporeans”.

In a world where social media is ubiquitous, and allows for a lower barrier of entry to become a personality, the hype for local programmes used to find talent such as Anugerah, or Anugerah Skrin, have died down. Now, social media personalities seem to have a bigger pool of viewers than personalities in mainstream local media. Tapping on the followings of these social media personalities is predicted to increase viewership of mainstream programmes, as they would appeal to the youth who are users of these social media platforms. In Sinar Lebaran 2024, Suria tried to experiment by including media personalities from SGAG, a digital content producer in Singapore. Comedy has been a trademark of Sinar Lebaran since the yesteryears, and much feedback has revolved around the lack of that in this year’s programming. Many netizens have expressed that these personalities should not be involved in this particular comedy scene because mainstream television is vastly different from social media, where most of their content is situated.¹⁵

There are also efforts in expanding to multiple online platforms, that each have their own value. Suria is on MeWatch, which is an online platform that provides free access to different local TV channels, and on-demand videos – that allows viewers to catch up on missed episodes, or rewatch episodes whenever they desire. On top of streaming current programmes, be it local or acquired, MeWatch also boasts a comprehensive library of programmes from Suria’s yesteryears. This way, viewers can still consume local content at their own flexibility. On Instagram, the Suria channel goes by @Mediacorp.Untukmu, where they post snippets of current and upcoming shows to build awareness of their own shows while having an online presence. Suria has also explored transmedia productions, but their effectiveness remains to be reported. Further studies can be done to analyse the effectiveness of these various engagements on the Suria viewership.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Singaporean Malay produced television outside of Suria are few and far between as well, as noted by the constraints that we have expounded on previously. With this top-down approach of Singapore’s media landscape, and in order to capture a greater audience demographic who are interested Malay/Muslim stories, it is no wonder that independent production houses who do want to explore stories with unexpected storylines, especially pertaining to the Malay/Muslim community, have to branch outside of Singapore to do so.¹⁶ This can be seen in films like La Luna (2023), with an unexpected storyline, boasting a star-studded cast from Malaysia. This film was produced by Papahan Films (Singapore), Clover Films (Singapore), and Act 2 Pictures (Malaysia). In addition, we also note a number of Singaporean actors who do well in Malaysian television and film, who made the shift to be based in Malaysia to further their acting career.

After making these specific observations, here lies a few pertinent questions regarding the state of Malay television in Singapore: What does success look like for the general Singaporean Malay television scene, and is it different from what success looks like for Suria as a channel? For all the constraints that Singaporean Malay television has to work with, it seems that Suria is finding a comfortable footing in the variety, educational and informative genres as a pathway to success. There is of course much to be explored and cultivated with regard to other genres. This success may translate to this statistic in the Media Consumer Experience Survey 2015 conducted by IMDA, that “on free-to-air TV, satisfaction was the highest with local programmes on CNA at 79.1%, followed by Vasantham at 78.4%, Suria at 76.5%.”. Additionally, with regard to why consumers do not subscribe to PayTV, we also observe that the percentage of people who stated that “Mediacorp is enough” dwindled from 57.7% to 47.6% from 2011 to 2013. This was before streaming services became ubiquitous, and these statistics may look vastly different now. On top of updating the study findings section on the IMDA website, there is a need for Suria to re-examine on-the-ground sentiments with regard to what the “affluent and new breed of Malay Singaporeans'' want Singaporean Malay television to look like, in order to create a more robust television landscape in Singapore.

Nur Izzatie is currently a Research Analyst at the Centre of Research on Islamic and Malay Affairs (RIMA). She completed her undergraduate studies in Sociology at Nanyang Technological University, where she was able to cultivate her love for unpacking and diving deep into different cultural phenomena.

Iliyas Juanda is a History undergraduate with a Communications background. His research interests span media consumption, Malay identities, and music journalism.