Thailand remains among Asia’s top formats markets, despite an almost 30% drop in volume this year against last year, and is showing every sign that Covid-19 related pressures are easing. 

Like everywhere, Covid-19 and widespread containment measures have had an impact on format production in Thailand – Asia’s second largest formats market by volume with a genre-split dominated by audience-based game, entertainment and a range of competition shows.  

According to ContentAsia’s Formats Outlook, Thailand aired/commissioned 33 formats in the first half of this year – about 27% down on the 45 titles we counted in the first six months of last year. 

Our latest list for Thailand ranges wide, from adaptations of premium Korean drama such as Another Miss Oh (remade in Thailand as Unlucky Ploy) to online games and, for the first time, a local adaptation of European eSports format, Gamerz, from Bomanbridge Media.  

Titles also include True CJ Creations’ Thai version of game format From Start Till Clear, which has a presence across platforms, including on YouTube’s Online Station;  NBCUniversal’s World of Dance S2; Nippon TV’s Mother; Dori Media’s The Best Of All S3; two versions of ITV Studios’ The Voice, Banijay’s Celebrity MasterChef; Fuji TV’s The Next Iron Chef S2; and CJ ENM’s I Can See Your Voice. 

Wildly popular rap music reality contest, Show Me The Money, has also returned, courtesy of the Bangkok-based True CJ Creations, a joint venture between Korea’s CJ ENM and Thailand’s True Group. 

Perhaps the most high-profile Covid-related delay was the debut of the local version of The Ellen de Generes Show (Warner Bros) hosted by Thai personality Woody Milintachinda. The adaptation is the first in Asia and, pre-Covid, was scheduled to air as The Woody Show Thailand on mass market free-TV Channel 7. We’re hearing the show will go on before the end of this year; no final confirmation at press time.

At the same time as the industry counts the costs of Covid-19, formats volume was already declining by the time the pandemic hit. 

For full year 2019, Thailand had 27% fewer formats compared to the 70 recorded for full-year 2018. 

Between 2018 and 2019, Thailand recorded the largest drop in the number of format titles aired/commissioned of any country in Asia.

In the first half of 2020, game shows totally dominated with 31% of the total, followed by cooking formats at 19% and singing shows at 13%. The remaining 37% is split between business, reality, dance and drama (neck and neck at 6% each) and dating, music, social influence, talk show and variety (see chart opposite). 

Outside of sheer volume, Thailand has long been in Asia’s formats vanguard, picking up new titles first and making bigger bets on shows untested elsewhere in the region. Local creators also have bigger ambitions to create and travel their own formats.  

If Ellen was the poster show for brand new titles in 2019/2020, ITV Studios’/Talpa’s The Voice Senior Thailand broke new ground as the first version in Asia of the widely adapted format for older contestants. 

The Voice Senior Thailand was one of three versions of The Voice adapted in Thailand last year. Season one, produced by APJ&CO, aired on PPTV from March to April 2019. Season two ran to 23 March this year. Season seven of The Voice Kids Thailand ran to September this year.  

Japanese broadcaster Fuji TV has also enjoyed a warm welcome in Thailand for cooking competition format, The Next Iron Chef – another first for the region. The series, a spin-off of Iron Chef, was designed to find the next resident chef on the weekly episodes of Iron Chef Thailand on BBTV Channel 7. The series is produced by Bangkok-based indie, Heliconia H Group, led by Heliconia’s CEO/exec producer Kitikorn Penrote. The 12-episode debut series ran from 23 June to 28 December 2019. Season two is currently under way. 

Going forward, we expect premium drama formats  to continue to pick up steam, driven by demand from streaming/digital platforms. Titles that  have ridden this trend in the past 18 months include Mother and Abandoned from Nippon TV Japan, and Tunnel, Voice and Another Miss Oh from Korea’s CJ ENM.        


Published in ContentAsia's Issue Three 2020, October 2020