Thailand will shortly launch an ASEAN channel, a strong indication that it looks at a solid politico-social alliance among the 10 Southeast Asian nations as key to progress in the region.

The Land of Smiles is soft-launching the channel timed with the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting. We are told that the dedicated channel will continue even after the other scheduled major summits.

The Asean channel, the first in the region, will allow for the broadcast of features produced among the nations in the organization.

This bodes well for independent producers in the Philippines hoping to crash into a huge television market that identifies with Filipino sensibility and angst. Cambodia, Brunei and Indonesia already air Philippine made soaps, dubbed in the local language.

The popular choice for Pinoy teleseryes is occasioned by several reasons.

PINOY TELESERYE RULES
Filipino-made series are usually pegged at a relatively lower acquisition price compared to the Latin American variety. More importantly, the twists and turns are far more local and identifiable to the Southeast Asian viewer.

Furthermore, the scenery, dress and faces of the characters are very familiarly and unmistakably Asian.

This last reason is critical among ASEAN program buyers who now fret over too much Western inroads in their local television landscape. Like children in the Philippines, many ASEAN kids are being exposed to Occidental tastes and cultural values. The decision to patronize something more familiar not only helps the regional economy but also nurtures values which are not entirely alien to the Asian child.

NO TO TV AS BABYSITTER
Another welcome news is Australia’s bold pronouncement that “exposing children who are not yet two years old to any form of television can be detrimental to child development.” Efforts are underway to even pass legislation to that effect. How it will unfold and how such regulation will ever prosper considering checks in the home are difficult, will be worth looking at. (At Anak TV, we advocate no television, even adult-supervised or guaranteed wholesome fare, to any kid under three.)

Again, this augurs well for families where childcare is equated with babysitting thru television. While such pronouncement may at best be a suggestion to families, the way cigarette packs have a medical warning about being hazardous to health, how the scientific facts will trickle down to the grassroots is again a challenge. Anak TV insists that a well thought out and comprehensively executed media literacy campaign can do the trick.

But then one wonders how government, saddled as it is with myriad challenges and perpetually engaged in patronage politics, can even think of earmarking a peso to start a serious campaign.

Thailand and Australia have two up their sleeves. When the Philippines will again land the news for good television is awaited with bated breath.