(Image Credits: Slow Dancing - MeWatch/Wattpad | Groom My Room - TheSmartLocal/Mediacorp | Schoolhouse Rockz - kenlyen.com | Teenage Textbook: The Series - The Straits Times/Mediacorp | Classmates - Sinema/Mediacorp [edited])
Many of us Singaporeans who grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s likely remember Kids Central and Okto in its earliest days - the local offerings alongside cable's Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. Like its western counterparts, the two local channels broadcasted a mix of shows targeted at children and young teenagers and - being free-to-air - were easily available to those who had television access.
Imported shows like Hi-5 and Winx Club were broadcasted alongside locally produced works. Some titles may trigger nostalgia: Groom My Room, We Are R.E.M, and Schoolhouse Rockz. Admirably, Mediacorp managed to produce well-liked shows from a variety of genres - already, the three mentioned belong to lifestyle, adventure, and musical/comedy, respectively - and provide content for kids from toddlers to tweens and young teens.
(Image Credits [clockwise]: Groom My Room image - Mediacorp Okto YouTube channel | Schoolhouse Rockz image - kenlyen.com | Kids Central logo - Reddit | We Are REM image - MeWatch [edited])
However, as many of the kids then grew up (i.e. the us of now), many understandably grew out of watching these shows. Also, with more appealing foreign content popping up, why watch local? There was observable change within Mediacorp's offerings to the younger population too, possibly in response to a shift in perceived audience preference. Moreover, those who saw the transition from Kids Central to Okto may have found the new offerings to be more targeted at kids under the age of 12 - and even this might be a stretch. While genre variety was kept strong, shows for older kids were quickly disappearing😕!
Unfortunately, in 2019, Mediacorp made the executive decision to merge Okto with the English-language Channel 5, effectively removing the one free-to-air channel dedicated to kids. Kids' shows would take up the morning slots on Channel 5 and could also be accessed via Mediacorp's own streaming platform MeWatch (Toggle, back then). Essentially, everything in English was being crammed into one channel...
As can be inferred from the above, teenagers - especially the older ones - never really had shows made solely for them, let alone a dedicated channel. Pair this with the rise of Netflix and YouTube, the growing 90s/00s generation left Mediacorp in the past and found entertainment elsewhere. Painfully aware of this, Mediacorp has started making attempts to appeal to older kids again in recent years.
Ignoring recent projects aimed at adults like Lion Mums and Kin, which teens might still be interested in (seeing as how many of them are attracted to widely-known foreign shows made for mature viewers), Mediacorp now has a handful of shows produced about teens, for teens.
2020 saw the release of Classmates, a dramedy about teenager Sarah, whose mother Siew Lim ends up in the same class as her in polytechnic. The show’s main humour stems from Siew Lim's efforts to connect with her daughter’s generation. From cringey attempts at Gen-Z slang to learning about social media live-streaming, many may relate to Sarah's subsequent embarrassment. However, the series also has heart to it, as Sarah eventually learns to truly appreciate her mum after several mishaps and conflicts. Classmates may not be ground-breaking, but it proves to be an entertaining addition to Mediacorp's catalogue with which teenagers may find easier to connect.
(Image Credit: MeWatch)
This year (2021), we have witnessed the birth of two notable series, Slow Dancing and Teenage Textbook: The Series. Both are screen adaptations of literary material - the former based on a popular Wattpad story and the latter based on a beloved 1988 local novel with a staggering 4.01/5 rating on Goodreads! They also take on very different tones. Slow Dancing is a thriller/drama series centred around a couple and a mysterious accident, and Teenage Textbook follows an ambitious polytechnic student’s journey through the trials and tribulations of adolescence - which, in some ways, is reminiscent of Classmates.
(Image Credits [left to right]: Slow Dancing poster - Wattpad | Teenage Textbook: The Series image - MeWatch [edited])
There have been other shows apart from the aforementioned that target teenagers, and perhaps even young adults. It seems that Mediacorp recognizes the need to attract a young audience to widen the consumption of free-to-air channels - which are so often passed over for foreign content. Already, the emergence of MeWatch/Toggle helped appeal to the internet-savvy population. But obviously, they should not simply stop there.
The formal aspects of the shows do invite some criticism. Some of these dramas don't paint adults in the greatest light, and their portrayals resemble the negative implications of the word "boomer". Many parents, in reality, do not resemble such portrayals (at least not at the frequency seen on screen) - yes, there may be the need for dramatization and exaggeration of certain qualities to arrest attention, but it could certainly leave a bad taste in one’s mouth upon viewing. What if the parents and teens have a neutral relationship not plagued by the need for adults to be 'relatable' to their children🤔?
On top of this, dialogue is another thing worth fixing to make these shows more likeable among the teenage demographic - and this is not just pertaining to teen-specific shows either. While Gen-Z slang may be omnipresent online, they are not necessarily used often in real-life, in-person conversations. However, some shows have scripts with teenage characters injecting unnecessary and oddly placed slang in their speech, which come off rather forcefully, compelling the audience to suspect these to be the unfortunate products of older scriptwriters’ set and misguided assumptions of how teens behave. While we can’t be certain what the writing processes for these shows are like - indeed, it may even vary from production to production - it would doubtless be fruitful for actual teens (perhaps the actors themselves) to be consulted before the scripts are finalised.
Overall, Mediacorp's efforts to amend their image among the teenage demographic to one that is inclusive of them is applaudable🎉, since they have been severely neglected before. The variety of genres 90s/00s kids enjoyed was promising especially for free-to-air television, and it seems to be gradually coming back - this time with adjustments to fit the current climate. Hopefully, Mediacorp will soon regain its reputation among younger Singaporeans as one of the go-to platforms for entertainment.