KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Television Producers' Association (PTVM) hopes the 2024 Budget which will be tabled in parliament by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim tomorrow will "bring more positives" for television producers.
In a statement today, PTVM president Datuk Jurey Latiff Rosli said that private television stations had faced a decline in advertisement revenue of late, because many advertisers had switched to social media.
"This has resulted in TV stations being unable to purchase new programmes from production houses and production houses have suffered a loss of revenue too," said Jurey.
Jurey welcomed Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil's recent move to restrict advertising on social media as "timely", and thanked him for increasing the number of annual meetings or "town halls" with PTVM.
"Since Fahmi became minister we have had two town halls with his ministry, on Dec 12 last year and Oct 9. In the first meeting, Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) announced that we would have three pitching sessions for production houses to provide more feedback on the state of the industry to the ministry."
Jurey said that PTVM hoped that Fahmi would give them a clear picture of his ministry's plans for the broadcasting industry in the coming year.
"We hope he will address the need to pay production houses more promptly as well as provide sufficient pitching sessions for us."
He urged the ministry to seriously consider PTVM's suggestion that television stations make 30 per cent payment to production houses upon the signing of the contract to screen a television programme.