Vietnam makes TV for the YouTube generation

Vietnam’s TV channels are following the lead of many Western networks with investments to produce more shows on YouTube, with most of them targeting young Vietnamese viewers, according to reports in the local press.

Vinh Long Television, which has four channels in addition to a channel on YouTube launched in 2014, is concentrating on documentaries and entertainment programmes with some success. From September 2014 to the end of this year’s first quarter, its YouTube channel attracted more than 295 million viewers, according to POPs Worldwide, a leading digital company and multi-channel network in Vietnam. Last year, THVL won the 2015 POPS Awards for its YouTube channel, which attracted the highest number of viewers.

Its biggest competitor is Vietnam Television‘s VTCTube, which launched in 2013. It offers dozens of theatre and music programmes as well as films produced by TV stations. VTCTube now attracts more than 80 million viewers, in a country of around 90 million (although individual programmes show “views” in the low hundreds on YouTube).

Today, Vietnam’s young TV producers and technicians are travelling to Singapore and South Korea to improve their skills and understand other TV and online markets.

These moves into the modern online world marks a change from a few years ago when Vietnam tried to restrict access to the TV market to foreign channels. The government’s attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, following extensive lobbying the AIB, among other organisations.

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