Starting from Apr 26,  the hour devoted to screening locally-made dramas on HTV9, 10 pm, will undergo dramatic reshuffles, which is an attempt to boost audience views.

Regarding the reforms, dramas to be screened in this hour will mostly be sentimental, family and comical ones, targeting at Ho Chi Minh City audiences in the age bracket of 20 to 50.

Screenplays will mostly be written by modern local screenwriters or adapted from popular novels.

The HCMC Television (HTV) decided to shortlist film producers to only three, namely Song Vang, Sena and Vietcom in its first year.

According to Truong Son, from HTV, the all-Vietnamese-drama hour was launched eight years ago and had fair audience views.

However, affected by the country’s economic malaise and faced with intense competition from other channels, the program has suffered unstable audience ratings, Son noted.

She elaborated that the instability is put down partly to late screening hours, which most audiences find inconvenient, and the dramas’ meager quality with predictable, cliché scripts, poor directing and limited acting skills.

“This partnership brings us stability. We’re positive that any screening hour could be the ‘golden hour’ for local films as long as the films have high quality,” said Bao Tram, director of Vietcom, one of the three HTV’s partners in this program.

Meanwhile, Bich Thuy, director of Sena Film Co., expressed concerns over some of the contract’s terms, which stipulated that her company is granted a limited sum to produce the films and share profits with HTV with the ads revenues. As a result, her company may suffer losses and embarrassment if they fail to lure audiences and advertisers.

Major local TV stations have previously made considerable reforms to revive local interest in domestically-made dramas, but to little avail.