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WeTV and Tencent Video look to innovate CHUANG ASIA, create entertainment variety shows for Asia and beyond

WeTV and Tencent Video look to innovate CHUANG ASIA, create entertainment variety shows for Asia and beyond

Estimated: 12 mins  reading

A little over 2 months after the conclusion of the inaugural edition of CHUANG ASIA Thailand, a second season is on its way.

With a worldwide audience, its first edition garnered over 2.5 billion views, amassed 82 social engagements across various channels, and ranked number 1 on X (formerly Twitter) and Weibo trends.

Captivating fans across the world with the formation of international girl group Gen1es, the new edition of CHUANG ASIA will be looking for members to complete its first-ever international boy group.

Before we meet THE BOY EDITION! hopefuls, we look back on our conversation with WeTV Director and Vice President of Tencent Video, Jeff Han and CHUANG ASIA Producer, Kaichen Li during the Grand Debut Night of CHUANG ASIA Thailand, where we talk about what went into producing the first season, the challenges they faced, and how they plan to move forward with the next season.

First of all, congratulations on the successful Grand Debut Night! How did last night feel, finally wrapping up this whole series? 

Jeff: For CHUANG, we've done so many seasons in China. This time, for CHUANG Asia, this is probably the most challenging one in terms of complexity, the kind of languages and also the cultural differences. But luckily, we made it. We managed to complete this in a more acceptable way.

For this edition,  we got the director and the same team that specialsed in producing original series of the survival show. So they've had extensive experience in this regard. They collaborated with the local team here. We also worked with the industry experts, including Jackson Wang, as well as local talents. 

This is the first venture for Chuang outside of China. What was it like putting this show together for Thailand?

Kaichen: I think, you know, from the ideation to the planning and to the final execution, it took us more than like a year. Yeah, because it's not easy to put together a show as complicated as CHUANG, right? So it is one of the biggest IPs of entertainment but it's also one of the most complicated variety shows in the market. I think right now we realise there's actually a lot of things that we could improve. But it's a brand new territory and it's a brand new experiment. So I think on this journey, it's also like a learning process for us. We're trying to see what are the things that work here and what are things actually not working here, even though it's working in China. Right, because it's an entirely different territory and audience.

You have a number of mentors for this show, the lead mentor being Jackson Wang, alongside Thai personalities like WayV's TEN, Mike Angelo, Jeff Satur, and Nene Pornnappan. How did you end up with thise set of mentors?

Kaichen: Jackson Wang is our lead mentor and also co -producer. We wanted to have someone who is Asian, because we are CHUANG Asia. Jackson is someone who has worldwide awareness and popularity, plus he's extremely popular in Thailand. It was like a no -brainer for us. So he was the first pick. 

He also has the same kind of aspirations as we do. He actually wanted to produce a show like this, so he was also looking for a partner. I think the first time I brought up the idea with him was a year ago —  in LA, last April. 

He was extremely interested. We had a brainstorming of a lot of the little things that we needed to pay attention to when it comes to execution, even from the first conversation. That's how we closed Jackson for the deal.

Since we were producing in Thailand, we hoped the mentors could help us to penetrate into different segments of the market.  WayV’s TEN represents a very successful Thai artist who can go beyond Thailand to Korea and to China. Jeff Satur is an extremely talented singer, so we needed someone who was good at singing as our vocal mentor. 

For Mike Angelo, he’s an all-rounder. He can speak five languages. Considering the composition of ten nationalities of trainees in the show, language capability is actually an important criteria when we chose the mentors.

With Nene Pornnappan, of course, we are CHUANG Asia and we want to bring some of the CHUANG China elements. She's from the debut group from the first season. That’s how we put together all the mentors. 

You guys have partnered with RYCE Entertainment. Can you tell us more about that?

Kaichen: They are not part of the production of the show, but RYCE ENTERTAINMENT is our partner for talent management. After the group debuts, they will be co-managed with Tencent.

You mentioned that you realised the improvements you needed to make and you're learning from them now. Can you tell us a little bit about the challenges that you faced in mounting this edition of CHUANG? 

Kaichen: I think it's not really the right or wrong. But I think there are things that we could do more effectively. For example, when we're doing the post -production, there are just so many languages in the original script.

At the beginning we are trying to do the accurate translation for every word and that basically takes two days. But the way that we work, we only have like six days for post -production right after shooting in the previous weekend. And for the crew to translate and for the post -production, that takes four days. So it can seem like one third of the time for that period.Then we realised it's not really effective right. So if we do 50% accuracy in the translation it can save us a lot of time, and  I think that's good enough for the team just to begin the edits.

There's a lot of things that we can further improve, that’s just one of the examples.

CHUANG ASIA Thailand wraps up with friendships formed, lessons learned, and Gen1es' much-awaited debut

Is there anything in particular you would want to change for the next one?

Jeff: Yeah, most definitely. Yeah, I think this one, as I was, you know, before the show, I was actually talking with Jackson in his room and we were talking about, “Hey, how are we going to elevate this experience much better?”  Especially for this program, right? We were following the previous CHUANG format, but I think going forward, we might need to instill some innovative elements into the show.

It’s quite challenging, given the fact that these young kids are from all over Asia, so it is quite complicated. Local managers take care of them, but at the same time, we need local people in Thailand, China, maybe even North Asia to tap into relevant resources for networks for them to further develop themselves, especially around this region. So I think there are plenty of things to do. In terms of the program or the show itself, we need to think about ways to improve. We need to be resourceful in terms of getting connected to the industries in different markets. 

You had 9,000 applicants and then you had to narrow it down to like 70 people. What was that process like?

Kaichen:  For us, we have teams in China, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. So our local teams have provided us a lot of the local insight in terms of which type of training they think will be more accepted or better accepted in this local market. But of course from our point of view, sometimes we have the same opinion, sometimes with different opinions.I think it's a combination of the local insights and also the insight that we have accumulated through the previous four seasons of CHUANG.

The 70 participants came from different parts of the world. What was it like working with different cultures in a show of this magnitude?

Kaichen: I think surprisingly it's quite smooth.  The young girls feel very excited to be here. Zoi, a trainee from India, told me she couldn't even imagine there would be a similar show for girls in her country, so she cherished this opportunity.

For the Thai trainees, because it’s home court, I think they also play a very important role as the host of the foreign trainees so they are getting along pretty well.

What's your favourite moment from CHUANG ASIA?

Kaichen: The favorite moment I think I have is during the first and second elimination. The ones that get eliminated, they feel sad. They don’t want to go home, they want to stay here.  But they still think “it's the best kind of experience and memory I'm gonna have for my whole life.” It’s a very touching moment.The result is important, but it's not all about that, it's also about the journey.  They’re pretty young. There are so many possibilities.

Jeff: I think seeing all the participants from different countries.We have 70 people from 10 countries — from Korea, Japan, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Thailand, India, America, and Singapore. So having seen all these cultures come together. It’s also a good experiment for us to walk outside of China and to see all the beauty of blending different cultures.For all those young kids, young ladies, they are freely able to exchange not just languages but also the ways of life, the culture values and stuff like that. I think it’s probably the best part of CHUANG Asia for me.

What do WeTV and Tencent Video have in store for viewers around the world? Because you're not just in Asia, you're a little more international now.

Jeff: Tencent Video is one of the largest video streaming platforms in China. I think since back to like 2015, 2014, 2015, we started doing our originals and those original content actually cut across the series, variety shows, documentaries, animations, etc. 

I think for every year we sort of produced more than a hundred titles, across the different genres. So you can think about those as a base for our overseas library. We also delve into the local markets as well, like Indonesia, like Thailand. Previously, we were in Malaysia and the Philippines. We pretty much developed local titles based on our local audience needs and also the insights into our audience. We have those on top of our existing Chinese slate contents. And I think, especially for South Asia, Chinese content actually worked quite well to fit into the needs of local users. 

And not to mention the local titles. In the past, like the Malaysian titles, and also the titles for local Indonesian, and also for Thailand, we had some really, really good ones that hit the Twitter (now known as X) and Instagram trends. 

We've made some really good progress over the past four or five years. Last year, especially after the pandemic, we saw pretty good growth, both on subscription and also on our bottom line as well. 

There’s been a an upswing in C-dramas in Southeast Asia. How do you ensure that WeTV and Tencent Video can cater to the markets that you serve? You already talked about localisation. 

Jeff: Right. And also understanding the majority of our users are young, female skewed. So that's why we keep producing or keep our focus on promoting relevant content, both C, like you mentioned, the C suites, and also the local ones to cater to such a younger audience. 

Your team mentioned that the CHUANG ASIA Grande Debut Night had a very significant Indonesian presence in the audience yesterday, because they spent the most time on the platform. Are you focusing a little more energy into developing more localised content for them?

Jeff: Yes, most definitely. So that's something that we can look forward to throughout the year. 

With your first edition of CHUANG Asia all wrapped up, where else do you envision taking this concept? Will we see this in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore? 

Kaichen: I think it's up to the maturity of the market in different ways. For example, is the market ready to produce a show on this scale? If we use Malaysia or Indonesia as an anchor market, do they have enough qualified talent for that show? I think those are the factors we will consider and we will compare. This is why we chose Thailand for the first one.

Southeast Asia is a very rich entertainment scene like just here in Thailand. So with CHUANG, it's a very music-centred, idol-centred kind of thing. Are we going to see more of that?

Jeff: To be honest, you know, CHUANG was the first one that we tried to test the water. I believe we got a team set up especially for the CHUANG series. After this one, we'll go through the CHUANG Asia learnings and also the future plans for the next season and so on and so forth. So for this form, we're definitely going to continue doing it. But like I said, we need to make it better. Yeah. We need to make it more innovative in a way that is not just about the program itself, but also the format, the process, the people who participate in this show and also the type of industry resources we're going to tap into. 

Aside from CHUANG, we will be experimenting with more shows, a wider variety of reality shows, not just for this market but also for other markets as well. 

Applications for CHUANG ASIA Thailand Season 2 are open until 30 September 2024. Register here.

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