How low the wages are
In the "Thousands of Stars Awards Ceremony 2023" held on January 5, the Leap and Progress Male Artist Award was awarded to Ma Guandong, who has been working in TVB for 18 years.
When he came to the stage to accept the award, Ma Guandong said a word:
Thank you to my family for tolerating me for not giving home for many years!
The so-called "household" is a habit in Hong Kong society, when a person enters the society, he must take a fixed amount of money to his family every month as living expenses.
Ma Guandong joined the 21st TVB Artist Training Class in 2007 and developed his career as an actor, as well as a camera assistant. In the 18 years he has been in the industry, Ma Guandong has participated in dramas such as "Love Home", "Those I Love", "Falling in Love with My Declining God", "Breaking the Poison and Strongman" and so on.
Compared with some artists who can only play supporting roles after more than ten years, Ma Guandong is undoubtedly much luckier. Since 2016, Ma Guandong has been nominated for the third time for the "Leap Forward Male Artist". As we all know, the "Leap Forward Artist Award" is a symbol of being highly praised by TVB.
However, it is such a highly praised artist, who has been in the industry for many years and still can't afford it, and still needs his mother to help him from time to time, and the low labor (salary) of TVB can be imagined.
How low is the salary of TVB artists?
As far as the author knows, TVB artist salaries can be divided into different types according to different contracts.
One is a contract paid artist, which is also the so-called TVB "biological child".
SuchTVB's average artist earns about HK$10,000 per monthThe median income in Hong Kong is about HK$15,000, and the minimum wage in Hong Kong is HK$8,000.
The salary of TVB artists is spread on the Internet.
Seeing this, don't you think, so low, what's the point?
You would never have imagined that such an income is not a guarantee of income in drought and flood. TVB will stipulate in the contract how many shows will be completed each year.
What is a show, to put it simply, is a show. Former TVB artist Ou Jintang once revealed how to calculate the show in his own **, generally speaking, an episode of a 45-minute TV series will be interspersed with 4 advertisements in the middle, and an artist only needs to show his face once in half an episode, even if he completes a show.
If an artist shows his face a lot, then his income will rise. Ou Jintang was in the ATV period in the 90s, because there were still news programs that needed to show his face, and there were situation dramas, so his monthly income could also exceed 100,000 yuan.
It's just that this is a lucky case.
With the shrinking of the overall market of the TV industry, TV stations are becoming more and more refined in their management of artists. The probability of an artist breaking the show is getting lower and lower, on the contrary, the situation of not doing enough show is becoming more and more common.
In other words, if it weren't for the popular Xiaosheng Huadan, the salary of a TVB paid artist would be between 1-20,000. Horizontal comparison among Hong Kong office workers also belongs to the low income.
These artists who signed long-term contracts are lucky. There is also a kind of artist who signs a contract with TVB on a show-based basis
A "licorice artist" who has served TVB for decades chose to leave the nest last year because TVB wanted to sign a contract with her for a show a year. She felt that it was an insult to herself.
In recent years, many old artists have chosen to leave TVB because TVB asked them to sign such contracts. Not only is his life insecure, but he is also tied up by the TV station. If it weren't for a hundred thousand passions for acting, who would be able to resist staying?
There is no harm without comparison.
The low salary of TVB artists has been a topic of domestic entertainment for many years. In fact, in the TV period of the first decade of the last century, although the income of artists was low, compared with today, it was still passable.
In the 70s, the office clerk was hired with a monthly income of 300 Hong Kong dollars, and TVB's artist training class was officially hired after graduation with a monthly salary of 450 yuan (about 200 shows a year).
Li Yaoxiang entered TVB as a clerk in 81 years with a monthly salary of 2,000 Hong Kong dollars, and his monthly salary in the first year of the training class was about the same as that of a clerk, and the monthly salary in the second year was 3,000 yuan.
90 years ago, if you entered TVB as an artist, even if you can only be a group performer for a long time, as long as you are willing to work, your income can reach the median income in Hong Kong.
Since the first decade of the last century, with the soaring property prices in Hong Kong, the cost of living for ordinary people has become higher and higher. Compared with the soaring property prices and prices of TVB artists, the growth rate is very limited.
Therefore, many of today's TVB artists need to rely on part-time jobs to make a living.
TVB artists Mo Jiagan and Chen Guofeng work as porters for survival.
The bookworm (played by Lin Haowen) who played in "Love Home" was discovered by netizens to change careers and drive taxis.
A few years ago, at TVB's thousands of stars to celebrate the Taiwan celebration, the pillar Wang Mingquan said something, which caused warm applause from the audience.
Here it is:I hope that TVB Shantou culture will be less, the working hours will be less, and the labor (salary) will be increased a little.
Why are wages so low?
Why is TVB salary so low?
This is inseparable from the model of TV stations signing a large number of artists.
Looking around the world, there is almost no TV station like TVB that has signed a large number of artists. Europe, America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the mainland, artists all belong to brokerage companies, and they have short-term cooperative relations with TV stations, and they come and go freely.
But in Hong Kong, the model of TV stations signing artists has been in place for many years.
It is understood that TVB currently has more than 2,000 employees, including hundreds of artists. It is not easy for a city-level TV station with a market size of 7 million people to feed so many employees. In business, it is understandable that TVB wages are low.
It is not difficult for those who know a little about the Hong Kong circle to find:
The TVB system is derived from the Shaw Brothers' large-scale studio system
Shaw Brothers originated from Tianyi Film Production Company in Shanghai, and in the 50s of the last century, Run Run Shaw returned to Hong Kong from Singapore to work hard, and fought with his rival Cathay.
In order to win this business war, Run Run Shaw specially purchased land in Clear Water Bay to build Shaw Brothers Cinemas.
In 1961, Shaw Brothers Cinemas was completed, with a total area of more than 6,500 square meters, with 11 recording studios (studios), exterior venues including Costume Street, Minchu Street, Imperial Garden, Reservoir, etc., as well as production buildings, administrative buildings, props warehouses, TV production professional training centers, restaurants, banks, clinics, of which No. 1 Studio can accommodate more than 700 live audiences, and large-scale live broadcasts can be held here.
Since then, the entertainment dream factory, known as the "Hollywood of the East", was born here.
In order to polish the signboard, Shaw Brothers Films pursues two major policies.
One is the star system.
Shaw is well aware of the importance of celebrity appeal to the film business, and spares no effort to promote his artists.
The second is the salary system.
No matter how big the stars are, in Shaw Brothers, they are all dormitory and contract artists with very low wages. The Shaw Brothers will sign an artist to a very long contract when he enters the industry. At that time, the artist's reputation was low, and the salary was surprisingly low. When an artist becomes popular and wants to get a higher salary, Shaw Brothers will use the monopoly position of the industry to fight with him.
Back then, Xu Guanwen took the written script to talk to Run Run Shaw, hoping to increase the salary and participate in the dividends. Run Run Shaw took a cursory look at it, and a sentence that the script was too poorly written sent him away.
Xu Guanwen, who couldn't stand the suppression, chose to cooperate with Golden Harvest, and as a result, the movie was a big hit, breaking the box office record in Hong Kong in one fell swoop.
Don't think that Run Run Shaw is looking away, in business, he just can't accept that his artists want more right to speak.
Relying on this system, Shaw was able to significantly reduce the cost of film production, maintain the stability of the team, and take a large number of stars into his own hands with very low salaries.
With the development of the times, this rigid large-studio system has become less and less suitable for the Hong Kong film industry. On the contrary, Zou Wenhuai, who ran away from Shaw Brothers, actively promoted the satellite film company system after founding Golden Harvest, not only supporting Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and other capable people to set up satellite companies, but also actively allowing them to participate in dividends. At this point, Golden Harvest became the new overlord of the film industry, and Shaw Brothers gradually ended the film production business in the 80s of the last century.
In the 80s, Run Run Shaw shifted his focus to television.
However, he moved this system to TVB.
The Hong Kong market is small, and relying on this system, TVB has firmly established ratings inertia and has almost no ability to fight back against its competitor ATV. Over the years, TVB and ATV have basically maintained a seven-three-to-one, or eighty-two ratio.
Back then, TVB maintained its hegemony for many years. In order to suppress competitors, there are many strange regulations, for example, singers who have a contractual relationship with TVB can only speak Mandarin when interviewed by Youtai.
Internally, over the years, TVB has been "domineering" and "lonely cold" and other news.
In 1996, TVB's "Journey to the West" generated 200 million yuan, but the starring "Monkey King" Zhang Weijian only received a salary of 70,000 yuan.
When filming the second part, Zhang Weijian hoped that the company would add some money to him, but he never thought that the TVB executives would directly replace the protagonist with someone else.
Counting TVB has also become a routine for many out-of-nest artists.
There is no affection, and there is ...... lonelyAnd so on and so forth.
Actually, if you think about it from another perspective, if you are the boss or management, you will probably do the same.
As mentioned earlier, Hong Kong is only a small market with a population of 7 million. Although during the TVB** period, it was still able to radiate to the Pearl River Delta and Malaysia, but Hong Kong is still the main market.
Controlling costs is a huge subject to maintaining a balance of payments.
It is said that when Aunt Six was in charge of TVB, there was a legend that no matter what budget came to her, she would first cut1 3.
TVB's rival ATV, the only period when he made money was during Lin Baixin's main battle. Limber has an important magic weapon, which is "saving words for the top". It is said that ATV's toilets at that time stipulated that each person could only use three bars of toilet paper.
In the past, the mainland TV industry could only look back on TVB, and the limitations of the Hong Kong TV industry due to limited resources and limited costs were not too conspicuous. With the progress of the mainland TV industry, TVB's cheap sets, a set of costumes for n crews, etc., are particularly eye-catching.
Slowly, TVB, which does not want to make progress, is gradually abandoned by mainland audiences.
If it weren't for the strong topicality of "News Queen", how many people in the new generation would still remember TVB?
In Hong Kong, in the new century, with the increase in entertainment methods, the scale of TV viewers has gradually shrunk, and the total TV advertising market has gradually declined.
It is becoming more and more difficult for TVB to operate this system.
Fortunately, after the new administration entered the market, it was found that TVB only talked about throttling and did not talk about open source, which could not adapt to the development of the times. In recent years, TVB has significantly increased its cooperation with its mainland counterparts, and is also actively deploying live broadcast and other industries.
I hope that the success of "News Queen" will promote the revival of TVB. In addition to saving, TVB can also develop program types and improve production standards.
Only in this way can we embrace a broader market.
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