“The Ultimate Addiction” Averages 22 Points; FIFA World Cup Broadcast Receives Criticism

Although TVB invested a large sum in its 2014 FIFA World Cup broadcast, its special programming has so far failed to meet viewers’ expectations. Since the games opened on June 12, TVB has received dozens of complaints over inappropriate content and its lackluster coverage.

Since winning the exclusive broadcast rights to the FIFA World Cup, TVB re-directed many of its resources to promote the games and even planned the year’s programming around the tournament. Determined to make 2014 centered around the World Cup, the TV station first released a sports-themed TVB Calendar and later green-lit a second Wellness On The Go <星级健康2> focusing solely on competitive sports. Shortly before the games began, TVB ordered its top artistes to halt their work activities in order to film promotional music videos and commercials to hype up the event. To appeal to the younger audience, the company also sent out several of its popular idols such as Ruco Chan (陳展鵬), Samantha Ko (高海寧), and Christine Kuo (苟芸慧) to cover the event.

While its plans looked great on paper, TVB has instead received criticism over its World Cup programming. Despite being helmed by veteran hosts Carol Cheng (鄭裕玲), Patrick Dunn (鄧梓峰), and Carlo Ng (吳家樂), variety show Opening Carnival <開幕森巴嘉年華> received mostly negative reviews and averaged just six ratings points. Viewers also filed complaints over its excessive product placements and inappropriate content. Post-game review show Daily Highlights <黃金戰報> also generated four complaints over an incorrect country flag displayed in the backdrop, which some found disrespectful. TVB’s live game coverage was also deemed unsatisfactory. Since last week, the company has received 14 complaints citing its unprofessional sports commentary.

Struggling to compete with the major sports event, TVB’s own drama lineup also saw mediocre results last week. Come Home Love <愛‧回家>, Journey To The West <西遊記>, and new series The Ultimate Addiction <點金勝手> all averaged just 22 ratings points. Although TVB hoped to raise its prime-time ratings with The Ultimate Addiction, it instead attracted 29 complaints over Bosco Wong‘s (黃宗澤) lack of screen time as well as its controversial lesbian theme and provocative scenes.

Sources: Ming Pao

This article is written by Katrine for JayneStars.com.

Related Articles

Responses

  1. Tvb always puts Bosco dramas in bad time slots but no matter what about the rating Bosco is one of the best actors in tvb and tvb knows it .. Tvb doesn’t like Bosco it’s why tvb throws Bosco in the deep end

    1. Excuse me. 9.30pm is the golden time slot, better than 8.30pm. So Bosco’s drama shown at 9.30pm is NOT in a bad time slot, stop everything for the poor ratings.

      1. Don’t be that mad, it’s not that wrong for the world cup season. Actually during this world cup season 9.30 is when many in East Asia went to to get some sleep before waking up for the early morning matches, or either start to going out to spend a long night with friends at cafes showing match replays while waiting for the game at 12.00am.

      2. Bbfanny, the ratings are only for HK viewers. Got nothing to do with other parts of East Asia. The rating was similarly poor in the first week without the World Cup event.

      3. Excuse me but the media making a big deal out of the low ratings

      4. Yes it is a bad slot as it is the WORLD CUP SEASON.

      5. Yup blame everything except for the lousy series itself, lol!

  2. The World Cup special program of Txb is indeed boring. I can see why it gets criticism.

  3. “Although TVB hoped to raise its prime-time ratings with The Ultimate Addiction, it instead attracted 29 complaints over Bosco Wong‘s (黃宗澤) lack of screen time as well as its controversial lesbian theme and provocative scenes.”

    Haha. Now the complaints have evolved to actors screentime, these complainers must be disappointed enough to go to this extent.

  4. Looks like the series is not about lesbian after last night

    1. i think astro cut that scene that nancy kissed kate.

  5. Man they complained on small stuff. If you don’t like it, don’t watch. They need to put up “viewer discretion is advised” before the show start.

    1. Maybe they complain because they are watching for Bosco, and for the indecent material, maybe not watching at all.

    2. Actually, they did put up a viewer discretion message, at least on the version I watched on TV here in the U.S. Throughout Kate and Nancy’s kiss scene, there was a viewer discretion message going down the left side of the screen.

      1. Ahh my bad, I didn’t see it because I skim through the episode. It’s too boring.

  6. hkviewer love to complain about every lil things

  7. Ultimate Addiction is boring. Flawed and boring. It just feels so old.

    “inappropriate content”

    World Cup? What content so inappropriate?

    1. Agreed . And the dressing is really off. Kate looks like a nanny and Nancy dressing is serious and conservative. Hubby is the opposite!!!
      Nancy looks more like a PA than the wife

      1. Thought tvb said UA will boast their average rating.? What has gone wrong? 22 rating is just as low as monkey king.?

      2. Because TUA has a boring plot especially Sharon’s personal plot. Very old very boring yawn. Only Bosco is exciting and cool to watch but pity he don’t appear much. The females all look old and has weird styles. The CCB guy also looks old and too stern. I prefer to watch the fresh young newbie girls from M Club.

      3. Haha so true!! Sigh, Kate is bringing down the series..!

      4. Pretty sure most comments said its Sharon that brings the series down, not Kate :0 stop being a hater lol

  8. To be honest the World Cup should of been cancelled in the first place. There were people who were killed by making the World Cup happen and now there’s people dying from just watching the World Cup. TXB certainly made the wrong decision to dump large chucks of money.

    1. Huh? People dying? World Cup unites people. War stopped for awhile, promotes patriotism. A few hooligans will never dampen the spirit world cup represents. If TVB did not buy the broadcasting rights, there would have been even more criticism.

      1. You obviously know nothing of the fans. Differentiate between corrupt officials, holligan fans and genuine fans. Every type of sport has corruption and the fact is football unites people. The game is great, the people may not be. Bring your hate to another game.

      2. And very funny video too!

        As the host says, he loves the game but hates the officials. A lot of them now hates Sepp Blatter and FIFA. The game is a serious business.

      3. At least 8 workers were killed from injury from helping to build the World Cup stadiums and construction sites. Another 49 killed by terrorists in Kenya for watching World Cup. There was even a Chinese soccer fan who died from staying up to watch the World Cup. And as of now still many people suffering.

        It’s not just about the hooligan fans or corruption.
        World Cup may be a convincing illusion of sportsmanship and seem to be great and glamorous but the ugly truth is that it disconnects people rather than unites people together. My friend is an exchange student from Brazil and even though he is a crazy soccer fan he is very disappointed at how the Brazilian government spent so much funding towards the World Cup rather than public services like health, education, etc, and now people living there have to suffer from the skyrocketing inflation and high transport fees. It’s not only my friend who thinks this, as the riots speaks for itself on what the people really think.

      4. Agreed but the bid was I believe 8 years ago. Don’t you think it is a little too late?

    2. Don’t be stupid. World Cup is one of the biggest events of the world, just like the Olympics. And if you haven’t learnt yet, the purpose of international sporting events is to bring people together to root for their country. No one cancels a World Cup. FYI, the last time something like that happened was WWII. Plus, the bad ratings are not because of deaths due to the World Cup, it’s because TVB’s material is shit. Do you know how many people watches the competition? The fact that 2 billion people in the world watches it and TVB can still manage to get such low ratings for a World Cup special just shows how horrible their concept for the show is.

  9. Sorry to say I like Bosco but this series is not so interesting kinda find it boring to watch plus i’m not a Kate fan at all!!!

    1. TUA is so BORING. Kate just prove once again that she cannot act.

  10. Yes, I agree! There is too little of Bosco’s screentime!

  11. thought summer ratings were supposed to lower on average. it’s a pretty good series so far, suprised it’s only got 22 points. bosco is good. i also like nancy and kate is as usual-very pretty

  12. I rather watch Wayne Lai series instead. Maybe things will get better when JTTW, UA and the World Cup is outta here.

  13. am I the only one here enjoy watching The Ultimate Addiction?

    1. I like this drama too, but if they cut some scenes of Sharon and the family, add more scenes of Bosco and Kate, focus on the financial plot then I will enjoy this drama even more

      1. yeah agree with adding more kate scenes lol. her acting is great but haters are srsly….. hmm lifeless idiots I would sayz

    2. I like this series so far but nothing more than that. Sometimes the flashbacks are too long and draggy. Kate’s voice seems like she’s having a sort throat the whole time. But the rest like Nancy Wu and Bosco Wong have quite complex characters and good acting.

      1. Lol she sounds like that because she WAS having a cold/ flu / was sick lol. heard it in a couple of interviews

    3. Actually drama ultimate addiction not that bad but plot is boring and not about white collar crimes at all and all scenes backdrop looks fake. The actors such as main character Cheuk sang(Bosco Wong) and Anson(Nancy Hu) are ok I like to watch them but I don’t like Gia(Katie Tsui) and Madam(Sheren Chan), Gia’s acting is weird and Madam is pretentious. Meanwhile they spend too much storyline for Madam and Sir(Ben Huang) and Ms Florence(Elanne Kong) triangle.

      They should add more white collar crimes to the series and let Cheuk Sang show more badass moment. I agree that Cheuk sang has not enough screen time.

  14. Can’t blame tvb to make soccer fun when it’s soooooooo boring. What a dumb rule as offside.

    1. And you think it is fair is all players park themselves in front of the goal post waiting to put one in? It serves it’s purpose. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it is boring or dumb.

      1. there are two teams. are you telling me only one team wants to score? the other just play defense? give me a break, that players park in front of the goal is crazy talk. no offside = more scoring = more watchable.

      2. haha, i like this comment from you Funn “Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it is boring or dumb.” Works both ways.

      3. Might as well make the goal post bigger and do away with the goal keeper and allow body contact, head butting and high kicks. That would make it even more exciting. The rule is the rule. There are always a way to work around it. Just because some can’t work around it doesn’t mean it should be done away altogether.

      4. My comment is under moderation and I think it is because of the b-utt word. Anyway a repeat;

        Might as well make the goal post bigger and do away with the goal keeper and allow body contact, head bu-tting and high kicks. That would make it even more exciting. The rule is the rule. There are always a way to work around it. Just because some can’t work around it doesn’t mean it should be done away altogether.

      5. Wah lau eh!! Still under moderation???

        Again!

        Might as well make the goal post bigger and do away with the goal keeper and allow body contact, head b-u-t-t-ing and high kicks. That would make it even more exciting. The rule is the rule. There are always a way to work around it. Just because some can’t work around it doesn’t mean it should be done away altogether.

      6. no reason to repeat 3 times. again, offside is a dumb rule. working really hard to score a goal, the stupid rule of offside was called = no point.

      7. Can’t really define parking in front of a goalpost and waiting for the ball as hard work

  15. Do they realized that with internet & young audience… You can not only calculate the rating by TV only…

    For me, it was over year that I watch via my ipad, laptop etc…

  16. i was really looking forward to the Ultimate Addiction. I’m surprised that there were many criticisms even tho it’s typical to have them if there are any lust/lesbian stuff in it, because ppl like to focus only on the bad sides.
    But come on, what’s wrong with lesbian? Thats just so stereotype. -.-
    If ppl find it too lustful and inappropriate for kids then don’t watch it.

    1. exactly ahaha wtf they did state that view discretion is advised pfft if people can’t accept lesbian-related shows, then OMG DONT WATCH IT?? anyways it’s more of the financial storyline the lesbian scenes were just a couple of kiss scenes lol & only bc nancy was angry with Kate lol

  17. TV Rating Reports are misleading nowadays, because:
    1. More people choose to watch episodes online now like MyTV (On one episode of the Ultimate Addiction it got 121,000 views, equivalent to 2 rating pts).
    2. Two new Hong Kong Free TV Channels are now available. This means that there are more options for HK viewers to switch channel and even though those channels have low ratings (around 5pts) it may explain why it is so hard to reach the 30 point benchmark now even with impressive dramas like Ruse of Engagement, Storm in a Cocoon and Never Dance Alone being broadcast
    3. Watching TV at home during dinner use to be a customary thing to do in Hong Kong, but now the culture has changed and less people are attracted to watch TV dramas nowadays

  18. he and park hae jin has a resemblance to one another?

  19. Only watching this drama for Kate-Bosco-Nancy. Love Boka!

  20. why are hk audiences always filing complaints??

    1. Omg. Kate’s acting is like new comer. When she talks or cry it’s so fake and forced. What’s wrong with her? And another omg moment is when they speak English. Cc buddy. Haha. I get goosebumps.

      1. Lol k then don’t watch? lol hating on her isn’t gonna change anything. it wouldn’t even AFFECT her bc she obviously doesn’t bother about small potatoes like us. anyways, her English is alright in the drama, I could understand it. & her acting was fine too, nothing Forced about it at all.

      2. @mandy
        Really love Kate as Gia in episode 15, I am impressed with her screaming scene when she got illustration about everyone in the office being vampire

  21. While the series is mediocre to me, I was pleasantly surprised that bitcoin parody c-coin is running several episodes and might have a major background role in the story.

    While bitcoins have been gaining steam, I didn’t expect it to be mentioned in something so mainstream. I know it’s big in China but wasn’t expecting HK to show as much love.

  22. Am I the only one who enjoys this series so far? 😐

Comments are closed.