TVB Ratings Plunge as Viewers Condemn Mainland’s “Journey to the West”
TVB may have made the wrong move by filling its 8:30 evening time slot with Mainland production Journey To The West <西遊記>. While TVB executives had high hopes that the fantasy drama will lure in viewers, the public unfortunately found the series lacking and had even made demands to take it off the air.
Originally released in China in 2011, Journey to the West reportedly had a production budget of $100 million RMB and a special effects team that had previously contributed to Hollywood hit Lord of the Rings. TVB made the surprising decision to air the drama during prime time, believing that its classic story line and its cast of fresh faces will add variety to its program lineup.
The show premiered on April 28 and averaged 25 ratings points. The figure slipped significantly on its second day, coming in at just 21 points. Although TVB claimed that the series was positively received, in truth, there has been strong backlash online from angry netizens. Hong Kong’s Communications Authority also received 91 complaints regarding the drama. Many voiced their disapproval over the rough special effects and incompetent make-up techniques, while others complained about the violence and questionable themes. Most of all, the public feels that the series is inappropriate for the prime-time slot and has requested its swift removal.
Despite the uproar, TVB executive Tsang Sing Ming (曾醒明) stands firmly behind the company’s decision and stated that there are no plans to cancel the series. He feels that viewers may need time to get used to the show and its techniques, and urges them to keep watching.
Journey to the West‘s poor viewership may have also affected interest in TVB’s own drama Never Dance Alone <女人俱樂部>, which occupies the subsequent time slot at 9:30 p.m. Although producer Eric Tsang (曾志偉) was confident that the Mainland fantasy epic would carry over viewers, Never Dance Alone also saw a two-point drop in ratings during its second week, averaging only 23 points.
Source: Ming Pao
This article is written by Katrine for JayneStars.com.
Not surprised! As there’s no tvb stars & there’s also no one really well known that is part of the cast! & mainlands version of Monkey King is never as fun as TVBs version… Not sure why though!
Because they tried to hard which made it unnatural.
Personal opinion: there is also the way mainland actors/actresses talk that does not make me feel “good” as HK actors/actress do. I do not understand both Mandarin and Cantonese but when I watch Chinese movies, if the option available, I always choose “Cantonese” for the audio while reading the English sub.
*too hard
cant agree with u more.
one of the main reason why people watch tvb drama is because of its actors/actresses.
i can’t believe tvb would put a mainland series in such a prime slot. just asking for trouble.
if people didnt care about the actors and just purely watched series for themes or plot, then tvb wouldnt be so popular and atv would have a bigger audience…
The Cantonese dubbing sounds ‘fake’, the drama has too much CGI, really overdone, effects does not look realistic and is nor pleasing to the eye.
And the entire cast feel so distant, no personal touch, can’t relate to the characters, and its like watching a hyped-out video game.
I can’t even watch the first episode in its entirety and never continue to the second.
Most mainland drama are crap :/ long winded, illogical plot, features annoying characters portrayed by not good looking actors/actresses. Sure there are a lot of good one, but the majority is bad >__>
And I agree, most of us watch tvb for their actors and actresses. That’s probably why I don’t watch tvb series if they feature actors/actresses I don’t like lol
What a bunch of nonsense. Most Mainland dramas are produced well and serious in scripts. It’s the TVB dramas that are illogical and dumb.
What a load of BS and is typical of die hard TVB fans who still praise TVB productions regardless of how bad they are.
I agree with Little Fishy. Mainland dramas are always sooo long winded. Even though TVB storylines can be boring and predictable, at least they get the point across quicker.
Cantonese is always fun to listen simply because We Cantonese has 11 sounds and not an easy language to master whereas Mandarin has only 4 sounds much simpler and not that fun to listen.
Cantonese has 11 vowels sound what I mean.
tsk tsk, TVB what were you thinking? Filling prime time slot with made-in-china drama is akin to digging its own grave.
Exactly. And the sad thing is that TVB is clearly in denial, claiming that the series was “positively received” when it wasn’t and insisting that audiences just need time to “warm up” to the series when most audiences already stopped watching. Seriously, TVB is running out of excuses…they might as well just admit that HK audiences don’t care for the series and the ratings suck because of it…I honestly would think more highly of them if they would just come out and admit they made the wrong decision and quickly come up with a way to rectify it…instead, they are pulling at straws trying to come up with various reasons why the ratings are not as expected. I swear, if I hear TVB claiming one more time that they have “utmost confidence” that JTTW’s ratings will go up, I think I’m going to vomit!
do you think that it will help to give the ratings a boost if they have admited that this drama was a bad choice? would you then watch this drama? i think its understandable that they want to save this drama,but for me would rather rewatch the dicky cheung version.
No, it wouldn’t help the ratings…which is why I said they should just admit they made the wrong decision and come up with a way to rectify it (for example — pulling the series off the air…it’s not like this would be the first time they’ve done that).
The part that frustrates me most is that the management over at TVB should have seen the writing on the wall already — I mean, it’s not difficult to see that the odds were not in their favor from the beginning, even before the series aired — i.e. the series is from several years ago and already aired on their own pay channels so alot of HK audiences already saw it — how is this different from ATV re-airing their old series from the 90s and trying to pass them off as ‘new’ series? Also, Mainland series are traditionally not very well received in HK (there are a few exceptions of course), the bad timing of airing this series during a politically sensitive time, etc. Given all of this, why move forward with airing the series, especially when they already had a different series scheduled for that time slot? Add to that all the criticism the series got about the storyline, CGI, poor editing and dubbing, etc…..what I’m really questioning is the decision-making ability amongst those TVB execs.
I kinda figure this happened because it’s filled with mainland aritist which are unpopular to TVB viewers and ppl I know in US dont even bother watching it
TVB really had mad the WRONG MOVE to putting this series into the slot and its FREAKING has 55eps $$%$%$^%@@$$$#@…….this really suck big time
i actually tend to enjoy mainland costume series but journey to the west was not one of them. a scheming palace drama would have probably brought in more viewers.
AGREE. I enjoyed The Legend of Zhen Huan. Even though there are more than 50 eps.
i watched this series before, i can’t get pass 5 ep of this series.
I thought this series was amazing. It did get really slow at the end though. Nevertheless, loved this series.
Have you seen any other journey to the west? Just wondering. I grew up watching the 1980-1990 mainland version, and that was good. But tvb one are hilarious and memorable
I’ve watched all of them. I like all of them. Of course, the 80s version was the most memorable because I was a kid and it was so cool! 🙂
I agreed with you.
This one is good.
I was a bit surprised when I saw the comments here. I’ve seen the older adaptions, enjoyed them but I love watching this one.
I was shocked when TVB decide to air this especially since it’s from mainland. It’s not surprising that ratings are low- this story is overused so it’s gotten boring. Plus the fact it has no tvb stars and only some random china stars lol. I really hope they cancel the series!!
IT HAS 55 EPISODES……..FML
If tvb decide to air more mainland drama, big number are to be expected. One of the reasons why I kinda hate mainland series, they all like 40+ epi, don’t even get me started on those 80+ epi series. I tense to drop them 1/3 way in >__>
Beyond true. I just end up reading the synopsis for the first 2/3 and watch the last 1/3.
Smart move by TVB. Well at least their own series won’t end up as lowest rating in year 2014 with JTTW as sacrificial lamb ‘corpse cushion aka jeen see dai’
“He feels that viewers may need time to get used to the show and its techniques, and urges them to keep watching.”
translation: we know you have no other channel to turn to,so STFU and watch kthnxbye
i have try to see one episode… i fond that very boring & the special effet look fake or may not be well done
great job tvbfail.
at any time when songs or back ground music is played. automatically my mind plays songs/music from the tvb version ( cheung wai kin series/part 1 ) of journey to the west. Lol .
who wants to watch this series? it’s long and draggy. too many episodes, they need to edit and shorten the drama.
It is a full adaptation of the book, in its own way and anything lesser than 50 episodes won’t do it justice. It is a good adaptation and the first few episodes like any TVB series has its hiccups and as with any mainland adaptation it always lacks that personal emotion or that emotional ties but at the end of the day it gets better and the actor Wu Yue as monkey king was given a monumental task which he carried out pretty well. Take away the cgi, the draggy few episodes prior to the start of the journey itself, it is an enjoyable series with some good make up. It is not TVB version but it is better than a lesser previous version, I think around the same year. I would watch it and I did watch it when it was first broadcast. It is a faithful adaptation but of course changed here and there but characters remain true for the most part to the text.
A credit to this adaptation that the director used real children in characters meant for children. This adaptation is actually by Zhang Jizhong who made the career of (for better or worse) Huang Xiaoming. It is a reputable adaptation and production and originally 66 episodes so if it is 50 or so episodes it means it has been further edited.
And I don’t believe in lead in series. If you really like that particular series you will watch it no matter what is before or after. And most these days watch online like Ruse Of Engagement is so at the end of the day the numbers for Never Dance Alone is not entirely accurate.
In fact it grabbed quite good rating in China where it was aired firsthand.
the taste of china ppl is different from the taste of hk ppl,i already said before that hk ppl dont like mainland dramas,because its draggy storyline and the actors.is there any mainland drama that has been a hit in hk before?i cant remember one.dicky cheung is the best monkey king ever,his movement,the way he talks,his mimic,everything was perfect.
yes in china but this is hk and hk is different from china,mainland dramas were never been a hit in hk,and it never will.
Can you name another Chinese series which was aired in golden slot in Txb? Most of the Chinese series are only aired on weekend nights or late at nights or midnoon of weekdays. In my memory, JTTW is the very first Chinese series on golden slot.
Perhaps if they air something like The Legend of Zhen Huan, the rating will be different.
And in fact Txb shorten the series quite a lot. I saw some cut version of Chinese series on Txb and honestly, Txb made them worse. They have bad edition skill to cut all nice scenes and makes the plot unreasonable. For example the quite recent series Loved in the purple, Txb made it illogically and plotless.
How about The Bronze Teeth (鐵齒銅牙紀曉嵐). That was a mainland series with good ratings.
If a foreign series like Dae Jang Gum can have such high ratings, then why can’t a mainland series achieve high ratings in hk????
Many like and have seen this drama. If the audience in HK can watch long winded series like Virtues of Harmony and that recent long winded modern comedy(the Come Home something series, sorry I forgot the name)then why can’t they watch this one?? This one is still short compared to those.
I have to laugh at this. I agree this Gina drama is horrible, make up horrible, don’t know the actors/actresses etc. but hey for all the people that are constantly bashing and complaining about tvb dramas, this will make them appreciate tvb dramas more.
I mean China drama
Yes! Please continue to drop the rating to 5, then they probably gonna remove that crap out. They need to air 5 episodes a day to get it over with.
This series will end July 11. Hahaha
watching the first episode already made me want to fall asleep, it was so boring. the effects were bad and worst of all, it wasn’t even funny. it was so boring.
I just miss Swipe Tap Love. :3
yau yau
Wukong can barely move his mouth!!! its ridiculous! as an actor, if you can’t do face expressions, how is that acting? Horrible version! too much CGI!
well can’t say i’m surprised at this, what was tvb thinking? clearly made a wrong decision and now they have to pay for it….i do feel bad though, but what can you do, gotta learn from your mistakes.
and M Club doesn’t interest me either so i have nothing to watch right now except for Come Home Love ahhahah
this is another tvb trick, dont fall for it…come on, they knew people would hate this show, its horrible, how could tvb think this would be liked…so they only reason they broadcast this is to show people how bad china tv shows can be too…like why dont they play good china productions instead they show this? this is just tvb trying to bring down china tv
If true, that is so underhanded of TXB.
So true. They must had seen it coming.
I don’t know how no TVB executive saw this coming. Anyone could’ve told them JTTW would be a major fail. I don’t remember the last time TVB cancelled a series. I’m pretty sure it’s never happened in the two decades I’ve been watching TVB. If the second episode has already dropped to 21 points I don’t see how TVB can continue broadcasting it. It may end up as the lowest rated primetime series in TVB history. They should’ve just aired it in late night like they did with Three Kingdoms, the Legend of Kublai Khan, and every other big production mainland series they bought.
Did anyone watched the original chinese version of the 2011 “Journey of the West”. The reason it’s “horrible” because the cantonese versrion that you all are watching is cut. They cut off lots of the scenes and story line. The first cantonese episode is equal to 4 or 5 episodes of the original. That’s why is confusing and “boring”
Plus it’s online and I don’t get it with people being too picky for one serial if you don’t like don’t watch it or just a typical tvb move I supposed
I am loving never dance alone. Maybe I’m the only one. If tvb wanted to air journey to the west, they should have reaired the tvb one
I love it too Elsa !
hah, I knew it would suck. I skipped the first episode, but I watched the 2nd one. I thought it sucked…I grew up in the 90’s so I really miss Dicky Cheung’s Monkey King in Journey to the West. Every single episode in that series is freaking awesome to watch.
Yeah, I remember watching it! I’m not sure if it’s the same one but the Pig guy was Wayne Lai! I love Dicky’s portrayal of it- he’s soo funny 😀
hi there
1. simply cannot match the “dicky/wayne/kwong wah/evergreen mak” combination.
2. just awesome and fantastic performance.
Guys, the recent clash between mainlanders and hk over kids peeing on street, makes people hot boiled. And airing this would make it even worse.
TVB are idiots and this series is crap anyway make things double worse
Would HK’ers get hot and bothered if those were white kids peeing in public?
If that mainland/hk issue is going to cause a boycott of Chinese dramas, what’s going to happen to HK film makers and celebs should an anti-HK backlash occur in China, given that so many are making a good living there.
Maybe they should pick other mainland dramas to broadcast instead.
Who knows? It’s probably in their agreement.
In order for china tv stations to broadcast tvb programs, tvb must also need to ‘buy’ some of their mainland dramas to be broadcasted.
If they wanted to boost ratings they should’ve just aired the 1996 Journey To The West.
1996? Which version it is?
the very first of dicky cheung,he was the best monkey king ever. nobody can beat his performance!
You must see Liu Xiao Ling Tong. His monkey king performance makes anyone in the same role pale. He absolutely put himself in the role and made it classic.
Dic-ky Cheung might be a good comedy but his monkey king is never monkey enough. FYI, I’m fan of TVB version of JTTW than 1986 version but Dic-ky didnt do the role as good as Liu Xiao Ling Tong.
Dicky was cute as the monkey king, but I still feel that Liu Xiao Ling Tong was the best monkey king ever. I don’t know if anyone can play the monkey king as well as Liu Xiao Ling Tong. I am a big fan of Dicky but he still is not the best monkey king ever in my opinion.
I loved 96 version. Watched it again and still fanatic over it. It’s very addicting. Quality is good compared to these days. Wayne, kong wa and dicky are best!
this is simply the worst move ever by tvb and worst still coming at a time when hk citizen are boycotting tvb due to HKTV license and tvb drama’s depth
truely they deserve a lesson, monopoly for too long simply put them behind.. no invitation I can see the downhill of tvb.
in addition, frankly speaking most of the hk ppl doesnt really watch tvb anymore.. even my mom who is 60 knows how to go online to watch kdrama and china show..
buck up less tvb else face the consequence of being kick out
Paying “astro on demand” to watch old china series. My mum also criticise TVB………no more actor & actress ah ???
LOL…same thing here, except I’m paying for the Jade World package here in the U.S. My mom has resorted to rewatching our collection of old TVB dramas every day now because there is nothing good to watch on TV anymore. To me, it’s sad when audiences would rather watch re-runs of old stuff rather the ‘new’ stuff on TV…
how can they show a 2011 series ? You’ve gotta be joking, I watched this on free TV then…. how can tvb be behind 8tv? jez
Yup but this JTTW is much more fun to watch as it is dubbed in Cantonese as my mandarin is placed 5th in the order of fluency…..
Like any typical malaysian Chinese, my mastering is in this order….1. Bahasa 2. English, 3. Cantonese, 4. Hokkien, 5. Mandarin, 6. Hakka…..hence, the majority of ‘the other half’ of us i.e. Malay ed type, not the Chinese ed will prefer all tv variety shows & dramas in dialects we are most comfortable in…..So you can imagine my delight re-watching this series in Cantonese ! Hurray!
I still prefer TVB’s version with Kong Wah, Dicky Cheung, Wayne Lai & Evergreen Mak. That’s the classic one.
Agreed…love that one too! Dicky’s sizzling performance as the funky dancing monkey god was a memorable one!
Lousy crappy show.. There are plenty of good Chinese serial drama, why choose crap like this.. Which idiot tvb programmer chose this show?
TVB was correct that it was positively received but only by the “head between their anus” TVB executives. HK viewers are fickled and sophisticated and will not hesitate to criticize poor acting, script writing or editing. Since some of there have been high caliber HK movies and TVB shows, they expect that standard to occur frequently. If I was a viewer, I definitely would not watch a mediocre show with unknown artists, poor scripts coupled with bad acting or inadequate costumes dumped into a prime time slot. Definitely a waste of my time.
already said it was a ratings strategy. theres hardly any mainland dramas shown in tvb’s history. tvb is using this to piss off viewers so they will watch tvb series more since they have a monopoly anyway. and lol for people falling for this nonsense.
tvb just trying to show hong kong how bad china tv can be…so they decide to air probably the most horrible show china ever made, so people will hate and it and keep thinking, ya tvb shows are much better, at least better than china series
It seems like all mainland dramas are 10-20 years behind tvb. Mainland should stop acting and all buy tvb dramas.
Kidding, right? To say TVB now is 5-10 years behind Mainland series is more correct.
Well said Alluka!
Tvb quality 10 times better than all mainland dramas. Always support Tvb
You got to be kidding me…the recent TVB dramas are all pretty crappy…
You are so bias against mainland dramas. Many if not all of them are really high quality compared to TVB. They are willing to put out the money and effort for a great series while TVB is sooo cheap that they just want to make a crappy series with as little money as possible.
Some of the comments on here are ridiculous. China’s mainland series are NOT 10-20 years behind TVB…are you serious? When was the last time you even saw a mainland drama? Even some of the crappiest, cheesiest mainland productions seem to have better costumes, settings, props, and makeup than TVB drama.
For example, take period dramas. There are notable examples (Bu Bu Jing Xin, Legend of Zhen Huan) where the costumes were exquisite. Even $hitty productions by YuZheng have amazingly colored costumes that are so eye-pleasing. TVB period dramas, on the other hand, have cheesy, extremely cheap looking costumes and fake backdrops that clearly reflect lack of investment in the productions.
It is ridiculous to criticize an entire country’s production of dramas based on ONE seemingly bad drama. There are so many good ones that, despite being raised with TVB dramas, I now prefer mainland dramas because the quality is so much better (particular for historical shows).
Very well said Xiaoxiu! You have said what I wanted to say. I must say that I grew up watching mainly TVB, some ATV, Taiwanese, some Singaporean and a few of the rare China productions back then and must say that TVB has really gone way downhill. I really miss the good old days. Even back then, I have noticed that great potential that China had when making high quality productions, therefore, I am not surprised that China has so many resources for making so many high quality productions. TVB, on the other hand, seems to get cheaper and cheaper on their productions and we can all see that. For one thing they are even way too cheap to make a decent wuxia, ancient and historical series because those take way more time, effort and money to make than a typical modern or police series which is mostly what TVB makes now. Is it because they are just plain cheap, lazy or do they truly lack the resources that they used to have in the past???
TVB used to have such beautiful costumes, but now their costumes are so dull, plain and poor looking. Is TVB just plain cheap or are they getting poor??? The costumes for mainland series are so nice that you can tell they spent a lot of time and money on them.
I’m surprised that people said the CGI is bad. The CGI look good to me and the scenes are beautiful.
I like Wu Yue and Nie Yuan in the series.
The CGI is bad because it was in 2011. The story may be a bit cold bu the acting is superb. This is just mass hysteria in condemnation of a series. If it is Yu Zheng, you will know the quality. With this one, the quality is different. except o one is interested. A break from TVB is good for a few weeks. Then it is back to same old c-rap from TVB again.
Wu Yue and Nie Yuan are 2 of my most favorite actors from China. Isn’t this a Zhang Ji Zhong production?? Zhang Ji Zhong is a well known and very famous producer in China and I bet more well respected than Yu Zheng as well.
Tvb come on, Why would you spend money to buy this crap. Everyone knows that mainland dramas are all crappy and ugly. Their actors can’t act and their series are all boring. Never relie on their dramas for high rating. Their dramas will only get like an average of 11 rating.While tvb will get rating of 30s.
Disagree that Chinese actor can’t act. Many Chinese actors are very good in acting.
Ironically, rarely have a Txb series in 30s recently. The last one is TITS2 which was in summer 2013.
I also disagree that all mainland dramas are bad. Many of them are good and are way better quality than TVB series. You are so wrong if you say that mainland actors cannot act. If you did not know, many of them were actually educated and trained at universities for debuting unlike many of the new artists of TVB. I feel many of viewers in HK are still bias against China and China productions to even give them a chance.
Apparently you haven’t been watching a lot of TVB Dramas lately…now those are crap. Unless you think they are top quality, in which case, you don’t have much class either. Enough said moron.
You sound like a big TVB fan that refuse to think anything non TVB is bad. I personally loved many of Dicky’s TVB series back then and did not like most of his China productions. I love many of the mainland series but none of the ones with Dicky in it. Honestly, regardless of how big of a fan you are of TVB, you have to admit that most of the recent TVB productions are really bad and cannot compare to mainland productions. Gosh, TVB also is so cheap and lazy to make some good ancient series too. They just make modern or police series which get so dull and boring.
We need more local HK TV drama’s, at least we have more choice then. Unfortunately, the HK government have not granted HKTV a license.
The other 2 companies that has got a TV licence does not have any plans yet to produce local TV drama’s.
I heard that NowTV did a joint production with China but they have not made any of their own yet. I wonder what is the point of granting those new stations licenses if they will not make any dramas?? I wonder if that is why they were granted licenses versus HKTV which already had several dramas done??? This makes me really wonder about many things….
NowTV made one series of their own. They had several shows in their hands as well.
That’s what I am also thinking. They have given the TV licences to companies that really does not have big plans to produce any or many local TV drama’s at the moment. It seems we can only expect TV shows from these new TV stations in the short term. It is better than nothing. Hopefully, the new TV stations are going to produce local HK TV drama’s in the future.
Maybe TVB has lobbied behind the scenes to not grant HKTV a licence in order to keep their monopoly on TV drama’s, because they feel HKTV is a threat to them in terms of TV drama’s.
My two sense worth as a casual viewer. Even though shows like this are watchable, they are not suited for prime time. They are far too niche. Personally, this show didn’t appeal to me after a few watches. Like a lot of mainland shows, the emphasis is on productions values. They rely too heavily on cgi and effects making the sets unnatural, un-relatable and cartoon-like, which I feel is the bane of many mainland productions — no need to spend loads of money and try to catch up with Hollywood! Sub-par dubbing causes the show to becomes void of emotion and an overly familiar script leads to little interest. The show comes across as slow stern and impersonal. Not all mainland shows suffer these things. I like many of them and many are more mature and better produced then tvb shows. But a lot of fantasy and wuxia stuff are just overdone.
I still find Dicky Cheong is the best. No one can replace him
The best version for me is also Dicky Cheungs but I dont agree that airing it instead of this one would have been better. It is still a very old series and putting it on a present prime time slot is just weird.
I think what they should have done, is stick to the plan and put a new TVB release. But now that this has happened, they should learn from their lesson.
Also, TVB, even if you don’t have money to produce your own ancient or mythical series anymore, please don’t just rely on others productions. It’s so pathetic.