Home girl: A scene from the 30-episode series Mua Dau Mua (First Rain of the Season) produced by VTV. Viet Nam's television stations are being asked to broadcast more domestic films and television series to counter the increasing influence of foreign programmes. — File Photo

HCM CITY — Viet Nam's television stations are being asked to broadcast more domestically made films and television series to cope with the increasing influence of foreign products.

The Ministry of Information and Communications is urging the stations to reduce the number of foreign series and to schedule domestically made shows and films at more favourable hours.

Despite the law stipulating that half of all television series be locally made, many TV stations have been airing large numbers of foreign films, mainly from China and South Korea.

The low prices of Chinese and South Korean series and the content are the chief reasons that TV stations have purchased films from these countries.

"Only established stations like VTV, HTV and Binh Duong Province's TV can afford production of up to 3,000 episodes a year to have enough films for screening," said an official from a TV station in a Mekong Delta province.

"Most TV stations don't have film studios and they must buy foreign series for broadcasting programmes," he said.

Nguyen The Dung, director of Bac Giang Province's Radio and Television, said most foreign TV series aired by the station were from the Chinese mainland, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong.

"We don't buy the series. We exchange them with commercial spots aired during the programmes," Dung said.

Phan Huu Minh, director of Thai Nguyen Province's Radio and Television, said: "We don't have a film studio to produce series. We buy many Chinese and South Korean series because the prices of the series are affordable."

"It's not easy to buy feature films produced by the US, Germany or France. They are very expensive. We have to select films that are both cheap and suitable for our viewers," Minh said.

Vu Thi Bich Lien, director of Song Vang Film Studio, said: "Home entertainment in Viet Nam now consists mainly of South Korean soap operas and historical Chinese dramas."

"I think TV stations should think of improving film-screening programmes," said third-year student Nguyen Thi Ngoc in HCM City. "The popularity of Chinese and South Korean series is falling."

"Young people like me feel bored seeing a great number of South Korean soaps which follow a standard sentimental format, usually focusing on the love wranglings of wealthy youngsters," she said.

VTV 1's foreign film programmes now consist of several Chinese series.

VTV3 is screening three South Korean series every day during foreign film programmes. VTV9 screens foreign series nine hours a day; all the series come from the Chinese mainland, South Korea and Taiwan.

Nguyen Ha Nam, VTV spokesman, said VTV aired both foreign and domestic series.

"Between 45 and 47 per cent of TV series broadcast over VTV during prime time in the last two years were locally made," said Nam, quoting a recent survey by the Ministry of Information and Communications.

Work is underway by VTV to increase broadcasting hours of locally made series, according to Nam.

"Foreign film broadcasting hours on VTV1 will be reduced and every Sunday afternoon new Vietnamese films will be screened on VTV1 starting in October," Nam said. "We'll show more Vietnamese-made on VTV3 next year." — VNS