Unboxing Television in Contemporary Indonesia

This report studies the production and consumption processes of Indonesian TV content. We employed ethnographic studies across 12 families in 3 regions: Greater Jakarta, West Java and East Nusa Tenggara, to get a deeper understanding about the use of television in everyday life. We also interviewed 28 key players (TV executives, media strategists, rating agency, advertisers) in the industry to gain insights about the dynamics of content production. We found that producers are caught in a captive situation, where the powerplay between TV stations, rating agency and media strategists are proving it difficult for creative workers to produce ‘quality' content. Obedience to ‘market mechanism' (rating) still plays the most powerful role in influencing content production. Direct feedback mechanism from audience to producerce is scarce. We strongly endorse for innovative actors to break this chain