One-stop centre to develop national creative content industry - Shabery

A one-stop centre to facilitate the proliferation of all types of creative content will be established early next year.

Aptly billed, Content Malaysia, the centre will consolidate resources provided by different government agencies to help ease industry players’ access to funding and commercialisation, said Communication and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek.

“At present, the Malaysia National Film Development (or FINAS) only looks into funding the film industry. Now, we want to consolidate all the funding that we have to cover film, television, gaming, animation, and even YouTube content,” he said after delivering a closed-door Post Budget 2015 briefing with creative content industry players at Angkasapuri, Thursday.

“The funding provided by FINAS, Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) will come under the one-stop center.”

To kick the ball rolling, a pitching centre is expected to be ready by January.

“We will teach them (industry practitioners) how to pitch the right way. Anyone who has an idea can submit it to the centre’s committee, who will decide the funding that they are entitled to. We can also help them to market the content to TV stations or private companies for sponsorship.”

“The pitching centre will be a bridging centre,” he said, adding that MDec will head and monitor the setting up of the outlet.

In the briefing, Shabery discussed with industry players on matters pertaining to content digitisation and called for local TV stations and content producers to adapt to changing times in order to stay relevant.

This include creating more compelling content suited for digital platforms like You Tube.

“We encourage the industry to get involved on YouTube. We will even provide the resources for one to two minute content, which sometimes generate a bigger impact than the content on TV.”

Federation of Screen Guild Malaysia (GAFIM) president Jurey Latiff Rosli welcomed the one-stop centre initiative but he also welcomes more engagement with the ministry to address issues pertaining to industry regulations, production standards as well as workers’ pay and welfare.

GAFIM, and 10 organisations have united under a campaign called Switch Off 14 to demand for better regulations and ecosystem to protect the interests of its players.

“By next year, we will be subjected to the six percent goods and services tax (GST). The industry wants to know if there will be a fee adjustment, for example, by TV stations that buy our content. We need to know in order to manage our costs.”

“The crew are still paid the same rate as 20 years ago. With the increase of six per cent GST, it will create a domino effect to the industry,” he said after attending the briefing.

As part of the ministry’s programme to meet industry players is a forum be held on October 30 at the Empire Hotel, Subang, followed by another lab TV digitisation session.

Attended by an approximately 300 creative industry practitioners, the briefing aimed at discussing the RM100 million allocation to develop the creative industry announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Oct 10.

During the Budget tabling, Najib said the fund will be channeled via the Digital Content Industry Fund to enhance and spur the growth of creative industries including the animation sector, film and architecture.